Molten lava, careens down

The angular lines of his chauvinistic face

Etching, engraving, chiseling a linocut of it

With crevices, nooks, crannies

Chasms of the Grand Canyon

Just as deep

Sizzling as the skin crisps

He can feel his eyes no more

He feels as she felt less than a decade ago*

He wants to scream but cannot

There is no word or voice for pain such as this

Mind blank,

Eyes blind,

Deaf as a stone,

But not unfeeling,

For now he feels with his face,

Not his organs of lust and mind of vengeful hate.

 

*Sonali Mukherjee is still fighting for justice, 9 years after her three attackers rendered her deaf, blind and disfigured with acid.