Jealousy

With words make a mask

So my face will not show terrors

Of mind stretched on rack.

Hide those drooping corners

Of lips in a pain twisted smile.

*

Patience, understanding

Quintessence of distilled reason

Can never be my anodyne.

Only guilt eases my pain

For it is I who turn the screw.

*

Pain, come purge me my sin

That I be purified by my pain

One day wake to the rising sun

With no fear

And listen

To the morning song of the thrush.

J J Puthucheary, 2 December 1958