Death staring on the face

by Ananya S. Guha / July 19th, 2020

He tried to draw his mother’s attention
as she lay on the railway station
without food and water in the train
He could not have understood what
was dehydration, hunger he could
he tried pulling the bed sheet
covering his mother
He surely did not understand death
He understood his mother as she was
His mother only
Not death
This is what is happening to our migrant
workers in Covid times and their families
Food and water bare necessities
Food and water not served in trains
Which have become a funeral of the dead
The two year old does not understand
Though death stares at him in the face.

Ananya S Guha lives in Shillong in North East India. He has been writing and publishing poetry for the last thirty years, and his poetry has appeared in numerous online publications. He holds a doctoral on the novels of William Golding and currently is a senior academic in India's Indira Gandhi National Open University. Read other articles by Ananya S..

This article was posted on Sunday, July 19th, 2020 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.