Answered Prayers
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Sputter...sputter...sputter...
tiny engine with one headlight.
Helmet-clad, my dear uncle,
were you glad when
the balmy wind ruffled your shirt-collars?

Serpent of night in blinking light
the shadow of roadside trees...

Switch the gear by your right foot,
my dear uncle - the rebel, my master on two-wheels -
press the brakes on the left.
Or was it the other way around.
Either way it was too close now,
to put on end to your motion -
your harried journey to touch your own flesh.
Devotion that greeted the news
of your first-born son
after seventeen years
of my-dear-aunty's prayers.
The unthankful bark of that roadside tree -
branches lurching, leaves aflutter like a vulture's wing -
did not step back to spare your jubilant collision.

Sputter...sputter...sputter...
mighty engine with one headlight.
Helmet-clad, my dear uncle,
were you glad,
as you sank to the deep sea,
that your undying prayers had earned a fresh boon?


mG.
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