Self Immolation

When there is no voice but this. Fire. Lit

with a kerosene fuelled spark. As if to say –

Watch me. It flares up

from her feet, then engulfs

her heart, frantically

beat out by her mother

before it reaches her face.

The hospitals here are unequipped.

Her sisters have gathered, wailing

in the hallways, their children clinging

to their legs. Her mother sits, slumped

against the wall.

There’s nothing the doctors can do.

This morning when they brought her in

she cried out in agony, her hands a crazy spasm,

fingers melted to the bone.

Now she is whimperless, alone on her bed.

Breathing through a piece of muslin

wet as wet leaves, she will take

twenty-four hours to die.