My friend lies garlanded

in the coffin.

Her stillness doesn’t suggest repose,

but a flight to the light.

The spray of loving words

and the sprinkling of red petals on her sari

are the final namaste 

to her body and her hovering soul.

As her coffin is moved 

to the crematorium,

led by twin daughters,

one holding an earthen urn

the other a lit diya,

her karma accompanies her soul 

to the next stage. 

She is reduced to ashes and bones,

but the weightless soul is free again.

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Tara Menon is an Indian-American writer based in Lexington, Massachusetts. More than eighty of her poems have been published in magazines, literary journals, and anthologies. Menon was a finalist for the Willow Run Poetry Book Award 2023/2024. Her latest poems have appeared in “Sheila-Na-Gig,” “Tipton Poetry Journal,” “Adanna Literary Journal,” “Arlington Poetry Journal,” and “A Plate of Pandemic.”