Itinerary

Outside Thane

Hurtling back on the train from Pune:

Bougainvillea slum,

Mystical cell phone ring.

Scraggle yard, blue tarp-slung concrete, crumble aluminum shack, crate-stacked go down

We wobble, heads tilt. Pity the ones who stand still.

We make a mad optimistic dash, grime be damned. We’ll drink coffee from an aluminum spout

Flavored with a sneeze.

Scarves ruffle, hair blows, and rubble, smoky-aired fields, a judas tree? The horn and track, caclunk caclank, a dull roar, heat.

The air is fresher than it will be all day.

In a dusty bed, I worried over slow declines. Better to go brilliantly, to cut back through morning.

Thank God for an empty blue seat.

Spindle orchard, looped barbed wire, power line tower. Dazzle, tawn — a sewage blast. Skeleton frames (the whole country is under construction).  A place no one bothered to clean up (different conception of public space; no sense of “the commons”). The DNA’s all rape, the Times is all burning — desperate women, dying birds, politicians un-tracked.

Better to shake out a white cloth,

Or to run across the earth,

Or to ride pillion on a motorcycle in a pink sari when you’re pushing 65.

You could buy those balls from that basket on that woman’s head, never knowing what they are. You could eat them! You could pay that blind man to sing you a song for a coin — he’ll sing it for you anyways! Aditya Burla group? Opposing train shock and blast.

The horizon is first dazzle, then mist.

Imagine slogan: Space is hard to get in India… but you can see it from the train.

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