Judas Window

by Davis Varghese

A sea of sand so limerent.
Stalks its languid prey under a midsummer sun.

A pitiful camel and its sun-stroked captain.
Elements of pathos, on the verge.
Pursued blatantly by an army of rolling dunes.

Wisps of green,
simmer on the horizon.

As he rubs his eyes in excitement,
the greens,

bisected by a syzygy of phosphenes,
is an assurance,
an invitation.

The captain explodes,
and the camel rockets, charging through the sand,
hapless and broken.

The magic ends as the oasis melts,
and the duo sinks,
thirsty and shaken.

He drops, then retreats, dagger drawn.
A sidewinder follows, unabashedly limerent.

The desert is waiting.

Each, eyeing a kill.

From a Judas window,
of their own making.

Davis Varghese is an IT professional and a globally wandering one, at that. Otherwise, he moonlights with prose and poetry whenever inspiration gives him a chance. A few “detective fiction” novels later, which have been translated and published by Manorama Books, one of India's leading publishers, his experiments with poetry have found a home in The SquawkBack, Borderless Journal, and Indian Review.