Martha Copyright © Cameron Hawke Smith 2011

Reading by Rob Lock

She has no own space but this,
the book she has wrapped in a towel
too worn for other service.

Hands that have scrubbed floors,
wrung out the orphans’ clothes,
open the stiff black covers.

She who had loved the king
had seen him borne away
littered with flowers, lying

dead beside his queen,
his family – eleven corpses,
a dynasty gunned down.

She had seen grieving boys’
shaven heads, the bright red ash
smeared on the women’s brows,

had felt the dirt on her tongue
from the Pashupati cremation
ground. And the smoke hung

in the hard-to reach places of her
anguish, and in the choking
syllables of her prayers. Other

torches, other violent men
oppressed her. Ganesha and Shiva
and the sweet monkeys of Hanuman

must go the way of her toys.
She found a listener, who answered,
who had suffered the final abuse.

Her king – it would be him.
She searched her stiff black book
and found a Christian name.