I could never fathom
how monsoon bulletholes
hadn’t ripped apart the sky
of a beggar’s jigsaw smile
or the enigma of words
dropping
like
raindrops
congealed
mid-sentence
in
an
urchin’s
throat
as he watched a tear
in his plastic tent
explode out of his universe
the shards of his tacit
pleas smothering him
and carving out his foot
swollen jackfruit yellow
how mere seconds later
he’d be laughing
and striking the Titanic pose
while sailing his boat to America
and back in the flood outside
Govandi station
how his father
Traced his weariness on the
drenched corners of a McD’s
Banner that became the side wall
of his makeshift home
with decrepit
railway tracks for a floor.
how the blind night never stole silently
into his tent. How she waited.
Crouching dog-like.
shaking her deathrattle.
Cursing in the Braille of
leptospirosis.
snickering in the corner as she
burnt her tongue trying
to bite the troubled dreams
of a family never knowing.
how he could
come out smiling
the next day. When his eyes
betrayed the sleepless
night of watching
the ooze of someone else’s
garbage licking the
edge of his charpoi.
water rising with the
audacity of anticipation
Swordlike in its quick
embrace girdling his youngest
daughter’s broken toenail.
***
It’s fortunate isn’t it?
That I am here
Safe
Blanket-wrapped
Buttock-warmed
sipping hot chai that
his wife made for me
Before she left.
Ajinkya Shenava
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