Losing Lasantha

your loss tastes like

newspapers

soaked in blood for breakfast

newsprint gathering dust in darkness

printing presses silenced by State machinery

windshield glass mixed with sand
spent bullets trampled into the dirt

(the bullets didn't break your body or brain:
to eliminate you they had
cattle-prods)

deafness to a decade’s screaming

a strangling of leads
leading nowhere

ink rendered invisible

your silenced laughter

spilling into the earth

forebodings of what would follow

with Kilinochchi withdrawal

Elephant Pass abandonment

the weight of all those doctors

bearing down on you

to bring you back

the names of those

who wanted you dead

still laughing

printing in reverse

unchewed pens

tears.

(8 January 2019 marks 10 years since Lasantha was assassinated.)