The Others
Part One
I
Had Pit not cursed the heavens
So loud, that night, when owls
And ears were awake, and had
He not drawn by his own hand
The letters "ΙΧΘΥΣ" in scarlet
Beneath the arctic prayer carpet
In the prayer room where Loo,
His sister, saw, heard and knew
What was till then his secret, he
Would've been away and free.
Loo was then twenty years old.
When she was ten, she was told,
To guard the house and watch Pit,
Her brother who spoke Sanskrit,
The language of his late mother,
Who died in Tibet, leaving o'er
Seeds unsown and a candlewick,
Lands to Loo, since a maverick
Like her, and roots, only roots,
To Pit,
Assuming he needed them since
He bore the family tree sins.
Two intersecting arcs, a fish, he
Doodled near the "I", and a sea
Of doubts drowned the witness,
Who stood behind the curtains,
Her hands in the prayer position
And on her thin lips a confession.
She kept her presence unknown
Or else, he wouldn't have shown
His opposition to her so clearly,
For he did love his sister dearly.
Loo loved him too and yet terror
Of her heart became the emperor
And the barge it sat in sailed up
Her sea of qualms and didn't stop
Till her decision was made stark:
Pit she'd punish, ô Pit she'd lock
In the attic for seventy two days!
Seventy two virgins, the praise!
Of that she'd remind him every
Night, in a voice soft and shivery.
YOU ARE READING
The Others
Poetry"They deceived us, and deceived themselves, the quiet-voiced elders, bequeathing us merely a receipt for deceit." said Loo, feeling almost all-knowing, almost sorry, once she reached the end of Four Quartets, wondering when her story shall begin. An...
