Bid Salam! when you cross the cemetery...

Bid Salam!
when you cross the cemetery
Said he, measuring footsteps,
since
souls waited, 
listened , responded
in mum voices
trapped in putrid garb
...
see there slept my mother incessantly, and
my father, adjacent
He pretended,
the tears as complacent
i stippled his pain
with my fingers plain
cajoled his mind not to linger
around graves
that was harbinger...
let his agony rise like plume 
assuaging inwards
my gaping gloom
lulled my withered heart that bled
to love him like his parents meant
adored him like earthly God and,
pampered the child that wept in him
nurtured him in prayers, in rosary beads...
begged for his happiness
and pleaded too
proposed my soul 
immolated myself
to make him love
at least himself
i could never win him
nor my love

.....
at last i stand here near his grave
offering Salam!
near the cemetery
praying the grave to embalm...
to embalm!