In flames..

Just a teenage girl when mother died.
The morning had a gloomy starting,
Rain,amidst untimely departing,
of the only family I had.
I never knew my dad.

She was to be burnt..
'twas something new I learnt
from passer-bys who gazed,
at this young girl sitting dazed,
besides a body still.

I was in school and she had two jobs,
in my chores,then, to cook and clean,
and pick up odd-jobs in between,
to support my education,
which seemed so useless in desolation.

I ventured upstairs to my neighbor aunt,
who always helped us to sustain,
a respectable existence maintain,
but she refused saying rituals are a cost,
to be forgone by the poor when we lost,
a loved one.

My friends - a poor girl has poor mates,
themselves had numerous occasions
and gatherings,they said
asking me how would it look if they paid,
as parents had rules laid,
apparently,for even catastrophes.

My father's side had little reason,
when I visited them to cry treason,
towards my late dad who married out of caste,
they said he was swallowed by the vast
slum and sludge of a lower race.

Every door I knocked today seemed locked,
as if death shone on my face
weakening my case,
for alms to burn the dead
and wash its spit off my head.

A door did open,
of a well known samaritan,
who offered money as barter,
for my 15 year old body serving martyr,
raising his name to further heights,
payment for an unknown's last rites.

Mother was burnt in gathering dusk,
and my back was patted no end,
for all who refused to help did attend,
not out of guilt but instead..
I called them,for my mother,now dead,
should feel a valued separation from the world.

As the crowd cleared,
the fumes neared,
their destination,Heaven,
but I sat by the pyre,
unwarmed by the fire,
every cent paid here,from our home,now sold.
Homeless in the approching cold.