The turtle widow

A widow, desolate, floated down a bored river,

knocked on the door of a turtle

holding up the earth and asked,

why…. how…. did my husband’s soul escape…forsake…renounce…abandon

me? Me?

The turtle gazed through wrinkled eyes,

and said, after 50, I don’t answer

useless questions en route to dust that tides trample on

It’s all “maya” anyway.

Salvage your wounds instead, old crone

Rub them bright with red chilies

till they bleed…exuberantly…avariciously…

like an unhinged raft

careening towards a precipice

then plummeting into a

frothy expansive

howl