Aquarium Friday and Other Stories

You Are Here

dumb poem that i wrote in a dumb airport

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You Are Here

There’s the lady at the end of the walkalator

telling you to hold the handrail, and please mind your step,

And the lady in the PA

telling you that your flight will now depart

from Gate 12A not 12B,

And the lady who’s been on your flight since Paris

telling you that her heels are sore,

And the lady at Starbucks,

telling you to have a nice flight, as if

It were that simple.

And there are the French boys with their guitars,

And the Delhi boys coming home after a tournament,

And the little girls bathed in Dravidian darkness,

But speaking in fluent French,

And they don’t laugh like Indian children.

And there’s you, a dot on the globe,

A perspective change in a video game,

And there’s a numbness in your right foot,

And a ringing in your left ear,

And there’s people waiting for you

two thousand miles away, but right now

there’s a sign before your eyes, saying:

YOU ARE HERE,

Because you need it.

You are here, with the stale echo of a frappucino

In your mouth.

The Parisian lady sleeps with her feet up on her suitcase,

And the couples return from their honeymoons,

Mehendi fading; holding hands because they should.

There is no lady telling you that

‘You are here’,

But the little girls play UNO in French,

And the smallest one cries because she loses

And you see that in France, or in India,

All children cry the same.