Lost Column |
For Richard de Souza
Bite marks on the wall,
boot stains on the rug,
your crumpled red tee shirt
chokes on the wrecked bed.
They sniffed around in your room for hours,
clawed through the shadows,
lifted prints off your thoughts,
left with your satchel, spilling words along the lawn.
No scrapbook of your columns,
no tin box of your poems,
no pirith chant,
no séance.
In the belly of the jungle,
on a pyre of tires,
they erased you
word by word.
copyright 2004
Ro
Gunetilleke |