The Child Bride

The vermilion on her forehead

is the colour of

crayon that coloured rising ridges

of the canvas in the art class,

her puny fingers are

blotted blood red

in alta, soiled in the dirt of

henna, both inane in ignorance.

The fire isn't holy

shapeless and scary

something that her mother uses

to bake rotis, a ghost that

burns in blisters,

why did she circumvent around it?

perhaps a dress rehearsal

of how she will burn her body

to dilapidate darkness.

Having tied her to a stranger

with a bridle made of black beads

they are sewing her cerements

to curtain her call on life

and in a year or two

her womb will melt

and so will her sighs

in an autumn's angst.

First published in Message in a Bottle review here