My stone house, shattered
by a dropped shell
as we sheltered in the bunker,
our tears falling like acid rain;
the torn, blood-stained shirt my husband wore,
while his corpse lay rotting
by the gutter’s edge in the market-place;
the cloth napkins I had laid aside
for my daughter, who was raped and killed
on her way home from school;
the death-lament of my refugee son
whose boat, trespassing across the sea
struck a sand bank;
my new-born son, smeared in blood
swaddled in my sari-pallu;
my life still clinging to my chest
though my breasts were blown away
by gun-fire;
a separate Eelam, unfolding like a picture
before my clouding eyes:
there is nothing left to me
but these.