The smile in the photograph
Is no reflection of what lies
In the dark hollow of the tunnels
Behind cement squares in rows,
Each, one-by-one in size
Marked by dates, picture and name
Of a tiny flash
A dot of life in the universe

Ashes in urns
Ancestors as concepts
In treasure vaults
Wrapped in rituals
Recycling memory
year after year

For the snow to melt
And the river to flow

Bones crackling
In sacred pyre,

The funeral 
In The World of Suzie Wong
Consumed the baby,
and then, lapped up
-the letter of introduction-
“To whom-so-ever it may concern”,

Flames are messengers
Carrying the known
To the unknown

Life to afterlife

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Sukrita Paul Kumar has published several collections of poems, including Without Margins, Rowing Together, Apurna. She has been invited as poet-in-residence in several places, including at the International Writing Program, Iowa. A former Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, and a known critic, she has also authored critical books such as Narrating Partition, The New Story, Conversations on Modernism