DEATH OF A BUST

                                                        
                                                                                       
  by Amit Chaudhury
This child came of age years ago;
her eyes, once unseeing, became bright
as irises; they looked at the world.
A flicker of a smile moistened the lips.
The plaits fell behind her, a motionless pair.
They were what was most dead about her
but even they had a bright, obedient newness.
She was sixteen;she looked with a sixteen-year-old's composure on the world.