Against A Backdrop

Like the light
trapped in a diamond.
I watch your face.

You know, that
you will never know yourself.
There was no elegy
before the cessation.

One day this will pass. You
will not lie against you,
naked as a moon.

A pride sins
the rose for tearing off the
bee's wings. I smell
a self-conceit.

You were drawing on your
fingernails, a portrait
of a dying river.

I wanted to live
before my cold-blooded carnage.

Satish Verma