Veil

Draped in red, oh! How well you pretend?

Wet eyelashes obscured by veil covering head.

They see you happy, but I doubt.

They believe your smile, but I see the plight.

The burden of bangles covering your wrist, and

The clank of anklets adorning your feet

Reveal irony as you go round and round the sacred fire.

Sin it is to kill a girl in mother’s womb,

But it is not to murder her dreams,

To wed her at just eighteen,

And please don’t you dare interfere,

Because even the law allows it.

Your vermilion glows red as the rituals end,

And I hopelessly watch the dawn turn into dusk,

And dusk into dark, 

So dark that even your bright red veil disappears.