reclines between the railway station
& the bus-stand where we wait for the bus
to snatch us away - the little old woman
ferries across before fainting in the crowd.
I pick her up, someone helps -
a three stranger equation.
her hair a deposit of sheddings.
her eyes protest light, resist dark.
grime films over her wrinkles, hiding them.
my fingertips touch her bones as I hold her
by arm. she smells like an element.
her murmurs bypass ears for the heart.
in an explosion of will she points across
the road, sticks to the stranger's flypaper body
as they cross - a baffled centipede & a fly
of limbs reach the other side. she sits down
at the edge of her world. he tucks his shirt back in.
I look away, not even meeting her eyes
as I say nothing.
at the traffic signal kids rap at car-windows
trying to sell sunglasses, calendars, candy
lottery tickets, until someone takes pity
or gets angry. they dissipate into crevices
of the future as the light turns green.
how immodest of the city to expose
its starved skin when there are so many
shiny cloaks to hide in.
I'm busy labeling the food chain. my car
would've rolled up windows too if I had one.
the footpath is an assembly line
of the immodesty - amputees on
self-styled skateboards, blind toy sellers
little girls with smaller girls on their hips
women singing to the chime of their coin-boxes -
elements of a scene softened with habit
to the verge of invisibility.
~Ajay
3/4/2020
YOU ARE READING
bliss station ~ poetry
Poetry~ where is your bliss station / you have to try to find it ~
