Transience

It’s like a child has tossed dirty balls
of cotton into the sky;
like the rupee has finally risen.

Through the bazaar’s maze, I pause
where vendors hawk toil and trust,
voices soaked in spices and seawind.
I buy roasted maize, hot samosas,
their warmth humming in my palms.

The rainbow bus pulls in, its sides painted
with marlin songs. Inside, the air
vibrates with foreign tongues,
yet I listen to a grandmother,
her proverbs folded into a child’s laughter.

Cane fields lean toward the sea,
dusty shanties brush high-rise dreams,
ancestors’ footprints fade
under fresh concrete.

We rise above the tombs.

I step into the sugar-scented breeze,
buy a sorbet râpé from a quiet cart,
its ice kissing my tongue with tamarind spice.
Filao trees sway like dancers,
their shadows stretching thin,
the sun a blazing marigold
offered to the ever-thirsty sea.

I walk home, the sky cleaner than ever,
past dim verandas, drifting sega beats.
A stray dog howls. Above, the moon hangs
pale, folded like a dholl puri,

the quiet witness to ever-shifting shores,
where the sea folds secrets into
the pockets of the sky and our hearts.