It was not a jubilee,
but I had come to pay my debt.
Stepping gingerly in your
father's study, you open the almirah.
No I am not afraid.
I have come to visit my father.
The hurt has not destroyed me completely.
Days were numbed like by vespa stings? with
burning, swelling and soreness.
I slide the clothes. In
deeper layer a plastic pack appears. on the
bed of dried rose petals,
sits a singed, brown vertebra?
collected after his funeral.
My talisman. I touch it.
Turn around?
don't look back
and walk away.
