eye slicer and
hair oil
met coconut breath on a back
street of Bombay
under the baleful stare of Indira Gandhi,
before she went completely mad.
of course, she disliked everyone
who talked without an accent
such as hers,
even when her tongue was swollen
by the sensibilities of British royalty.
the taxi driver said her thoughts
were being read by a distant fortuneteller
who sat in an elevated clock tower,
which looked over the enormous sweep of history.
and his fare nose helped steer him thru
the busy streets after midnight,
avoiding brass monkeys and the many cripples
who begged while sitting in piles of dirt.
the ever-alert angels, hawking cheap merchandise,
narrated stories
about snakes luring the innocent away from lush lands,
and snake charmers who know how to dance
without missing a step
jumping between the borders of two countries.
mounting an idle bicycle, a loner,
momentarily balanced in India,
riding a childhood's dream,
began pedaling innocently toward a
woman holding a knife that
drips with blood.
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