A dozen pigeons line the shingles
like the crack of dawn.
Soon they will scatter in rays:
iredescent, warm, forgiving,
reaching every roof
for food & straw.
Yesterday was my father’s
hand, today mine
that sprinkles grain.
Yet the floor is pecked clean
like it were
the work of beings unfazed
by time’s transition,
understanding nothing
but smooth swoop, soft landing,
soundless partake, before flapping again,
tracing palm lines
that bind our destiny.
Freshly washed clothes are dried best
by sitting besides them,
changing their side every hour or so
that faces the sun.
The exercise is especially important in winters,
the sun being sparse & the wool thick.
Perhaps this is why the week’s laundry is saved
for Sunday,
no one has to leave the house for work.
They may fret how they could have
slept till late,
eaten breakfast at 11,
but giving warmth to the one that warms you,
though sounding only logical,
is no small feat.
– and for what,
so the rays may converge
where they ought to: the droopy vision’s
optical propping?
Pressing down upon the nose’s ridge,
hugging the temples as if part of
nothing external but sprouted
from where the ears grew,
watered by sweat & hair-oil, mottled
with the occasional scalp fall,
like a father climbing his reticent child
up his shoulders. If the child wants to see
the carnival past the crowd’s heads,
or is tired from walking,
the father cannot tell.
No one turns off the key in the ignition
as they wait for their turn to crossover.
A mynah perched on a lax telephone wire above
listens intently, as if to a male’s chirp
coming from behind the coppice.
This is what living in a small city does:
the queues are shorter, you save more,
can afford to keep your car running
even while the light is red, communicating
with the birds, in engine’s hum.
In a small city, you become
a different species altogether.
greed’s favourite metaphor, bespoke, foolproof,
always hungry, eating up the space
a body surrenders, and—when it refuses to recede—
the body itself;
like you, my mother, holding on to
the bed for the third day now, supine,
back hurting from years of bearing
my share of anxiety upon your shoulders.
If only I could brush the past off
your aching muscle
the way—after I have driven
down the road with the visor pulled up—
I wipe my face, the tissue paper
blackening, the exhaust pipe soot amassed
into a wide, nose-shaped spot, antithesis
of my diffuse courage to love you back.
This being a Sunday morning,
the streets are clear as the late
November sky. The most traffic
I encounter is a father cycling
with his two kids. But the road
is so wide I go around without
breaking their line of motion.
I slow down, turn by the crooked
electric pole, accelerate, the way
it is meant to be. The city,
in this moment, is made of words
in the driver’s manual.
How would it be to exist in a world
like this: no one honking from behind,
none to take over
at the front? Reaching home
I lean back in my thinking chair,
the grey porch turmeric yellow
of the proud sun. At the far end,
in the kitchen, a wok simmers
on the stove: even as the curry leaf
is added to the bubbling oil, I can hear
the birds peck the bland grain.
Think of it as the day
you get a haircut
after a few months.
In the hot shower you wash
your unburdened head
like the river scrapes stone.
Then comes the scalp-drying,
with a thick towel, and —
in winters– under the bright sun.
Yet when you massage
your shortened sideburns,
bits of hair stick to your fingers,
keep sticking throughout the day.
Only in pain, the day is replaced
by months, and months
by years.
If I call you today, will you be able
to pick up the phone, fleeing your
cousin’s watchful eyes? A room
crowded with people: does it hinder
the escapee, or make her see
the spaces between bodies?
Clouds gather, yet the light exists
like a peach to be swallowed full:
after you’ve eaten the flesh,
spit the kernel like it were the sun.
Commute
How is it like for a woman to travel
in a bus with 10 strange men?
I feel awkward even if one person
of the opposite sex comes up
and sits next to me. From the corner
of my eye I study the contrasting
features of my fellow traveller:
sharp nose, heaving bosom, small belly.
Outside the moving window, the sky is
overcast: a discerning blend of black
and white, but every passenger watches
only the rain.
How is it like for a woman to travel
in a bus with 10 strange men?
I feel awkward even if one person
of the opposite sex comes up
and sits next to me. From the corner
of my eye I study the contrasting
features of my fellow traveller:
sharp nose, heaving bosom, small belly.
Outside the moving window, the sky turns
grey-black, a funny mix like a poor joke.
But there are no poor jokes;
just unadulterated truths we tend to ignore.
The Bard 