Aghora

He sits and waits
Near the bank of an ancient river
An ancestral sacred place

Bearing the stench
Of waste and death
The current pulls the refuse
A floating graveyard
Of disease
A body catches in a shallow part
And he rises from his meditation
To retrieve the sacred corpse
Whose arrival is a reward
The face swollen - tongue protruding
Its lifeless eyes bulging out of socket
With a stare of dead surprise
He drags the cadaver to his nest
Where he meditates again
Waiting for bone to become soft
And flesh to ripen delicately
The pungent stench overwhelms his senses
Until he can no longer resist
Plunging a spoon into the belly of death
He feeds so he can join his guest
And float away together
In the ancient river