Photo credits: commons.wikimedia.org

COOLIES

You’d think them crazy
walking back and forth in bazars,
their fingers like sprigs of rosemary
rising in hello.

You’d think them crazy,
doing fifteen rounds a day,
bent like wilted celery
weights on their backs,
ropes coiled around their chests
like memories.

You’d think them crazy
walking up slopes
with their trickling sweats
at two degrees—
flicking their tongues
bursting a stream of liquid
out their mouths, carrying
the burden of their lands
into mine for a currency.

Adrift, they stand alone
on distant shores, navigating
it like home—like me.
Our grounds have vanished,
our flocks are scattered.

IN THE KIDLIT AUTHORS’ WHATSAPP GROUP

We talk bulk book promotions at cheapest rates
because the target reader must know/learn/understand
about wars.
Death toll numbers rise.
We discuss right and wrong and LibGen
and worry about ethics.
There are no more surprises in war zones.
Someone needs an illustrator for a picture book 
on peace—a vulnerable, empathetic artist
to capture grief.
A woman who sleeps on the street prays for no rain.
And we worry
about editing/agents/publishers,
uff! they say there’s a market for stories
of debris.
A nine-year-old buys ration for his left-over family.
And we worry about tv and cartoon and YouTube—
we’re up against a grand orchestra, how about
a reading contest or giveaway?
We can still get some displaced readers.

COMMUNICATION (Prose Poem)

A bridge after bridge after bridge. Mother ascends then descends on one. She smells like metal but her head grows lilies. They trail like a waterfall, flow under my feet. My childhood lurches forward on their crippled bulbs. Mother floats. The bridges dissolve one by one by one. I stand at this end and gather my voice. It drowns in a void dappled by lilies. There are no secret pathways, only disappearing bridges between us. I no longer remember how to blow bubbles. Or roll marbles. But I remember, I’m married to a communications man. He wears a racing jersey and flies like lightning from one network to another to another. When I pull out my phone and speed dial mother, he laughs.