Barren Womb

a poem by Sridevi Rao-Nair

You showed me the cracks
In the barren ground
Sinuous void
Spreading its tentacles
In a grotesque pattern
Mocking the brittle earth
Mother.

I could not see
Beyond the darkness of your vision.
Tentacles spreading
even now
into me
Weaving a pattern
To my days.

Somewhere
A frog
Tests the darkness
Of the night.