I saw a little boy on the road.
His eyes, sullen and blood-red.
He begged by a signal uttering God's name
pocketing some change and stale bread.
He ran through the vehicles, like
a dexterous snake on prey.
He incurred insults, drenched
in the road-side dust and spit.
Below the flyover lay a ragged man, who
was the boy's father, smoking weed.
He lay in the dirt, dismantled
like a demolished building.
His shawl aged with penury -
a skeleton of his decrepit self.
The signal flashed three lights,
one by one, into his frail eyes, periodically.
He sputtered. And spat at the signal -
an inebriated indifference that bred inside him.
And recited some infernal chants that
rang harmlessly through the stale air in the vehicles.
The boy did a snake still -
that infamous artistic sprint.
Placid, he battled the heartless sun
that watched his childhood being undone.
The world moved ahead
as the signal turned green.
I moved, too, like an impotent spectator
interrogating a transitory superiority, ashamed.
