Six months after the quake of 1935 she found

her husband smoking the gold- rimmed hookah,

the pipe jammed into his ashen lips, eyes caked

into a droop. The sisters-in-law reclined on the bed

-post opposite the table-mirror, alabaster arms captive

in dozen gold bangles, clavicles hanging low

under the load of the naulakha necklace, chandelier

earrings fallen to the shoulders, hairs in cobweb lumps

clinging to bare scalps, a last glimpse of the royalty

borne of her dowry

that rendered her servile.

And  in her obstinacy to challenge the rage

of the earth, the mother-in-law sat on her teak-wood

chowki with silk cushions holding gold. The policemen

cleared the detritus to free the skeletons

and when she watched the pyres burning, they screamed

out in the furious crackling of wood, smoking her eyes

to tears—that would otherwise not come.