Clinically Dead
(composed in one of Dhaka's eternal traffic jams)
Supine on a trolley
Rolling down fast, faster
Save her please, hurry!
Arteries clogged, bumper to bumper
Thump and clear, thump and clear!
Doctoring with warden batons
Organs visibly fighting
Keep alert, keep alive
Keep talking back
We know you're still there!
Wire her up from vein to vein
Tangled cables plugged in
Screen her every life pulse
Insidious foreign machines
Graphs, charts, data
Monitor her very soul
Inject, inject!
Is she really sinking?
Pump in donated drugs, but
Carefully calculated doses only
Report's really bad we're afraid
She's in the last stage
Carcinogenic deposits in her breasts
Poisoned infant milk, doomed motherhood
Polluted tears from fermenting ducts
Dribble down comatose cheeks
Rancid respiration-fanned breath
Frantic-erratic-static
A hopeless lolling of the head
Dhaka
Clinically dead____________________
Rolling down fast, faster
Save her please, hurry!
Arteries clogged, bumper to bumper
Thump and clear, thump and clear!
Doctoring with warden batons
Organs visibly fighting
Keep alert, keep alive
Keep talking back
We know you're still there!
Wire her up from vein to vein
Tangled cables plugged in
Screen her every life pulse
Insidious foreign machines
Graphs, charts, data
Monitor her very soul
Inject, inject!
Is she really sinking?
Pump in donated drugs, but
Carefully calculated doses only
Report's really bad we're afraid
She's in the last stage
Carcinogenic deposits in her breasts
Poisoned infant milk, doomed motherhood
Polluted tears from fermenting ducts
Dribble down comatose cheeks
Rancid respiration-fanned breath
Frantic-erratic-static
A hopeless lolling of the head
Dhaka
Clinically dead____________________
[1] Tomorrow's Headline: The nation pays a fitting tribute. Recycled nuclear waste-cultured rose wreaths strew the dead city.
Rumana Siddique teaches English at Dhaka University.
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