Vignette

dressing her for the pyre
with a sari
that she would never wear
draping her tiny form,
a mother presses
the last round bindi
onto her baby's face,
whispering words
of love and loss,
for a life
taken away too soon;

a daughter draped
in red and white,
and a bindi
centered
between her brows,
lights her father's chest
with a handful of fire
torn from her burning gut,
and she whispers nothing;

a deathly silence
smudges the edges,
and deepens the colours
of a wordless void
etched in the ether -
of a mother,
a daughter,
their loss, and
an unbordered love.