and the wild cherry bloomed in its sanctuary the news was that the girls had gone back to the forests
taking their tears and broken hearts to bury again beneath the mould in a flurry of marigolds
over breakfast the lines of a cross connection distorted our message of love into something else altogether
some kind of violent lust fest that made the pigeons hide their eyes never mind the television while the
cuckoos screeching battled the strings

and then the guitar spoke in a zillion kinds of din or string and the girl lay down in the furrow waiting for
fire to strike and declare her pure of contamination but the news said the fire lied and her tears set a
limbless amputee tree in scarlet bloom trying to speak without tongues

and then the guitar spoke

spring in midwinter had come rainclouds blowing from west to east across the last telegraph wires
before the axe cut down the poles and woodcutter went to smoke a cigarette and never returned.

– Anjana Basu