The Beggar

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.