Hail tuk tuk: demarcator of space . . . politely barking – I AM HERE – slicing through tracing paper rifts, gossamer lace slits, tooting past trim embassy lawns, coffin-sized cafes, children selling roses – PLEASE – at the intersection, hijra request rupees, hawkish pedlars doppler, bats echoing into the sunset (silent chorus of moustaches), staccato parps when overtaking – GAPS AS NARROW AS SNAKE HIPS – long, mournful wails when someone is a stupid-bloody-bastard, flitting through cityscapes undergoing surgery, a whirligig of pipes and wires – TANGLED VEINS RIPPED FROM EARTH – diggers raking rubble like spades in sand (weighing the destructions worth), names re-named, sites re-seen, past-present-future ‘accurately seized’ – A CHIMERA CURTAILED – ironed out with horns that guide and gore, split the air in two, careening down palm paths punctuated by hammers and scarlet sickles, a supporting pillar hewn from a single jackfruit tree, the delicate pink of a kid’s ribcage, Jesus in a towering, tiered, cake-like case – the signage AMPUTATION IS NOT THE ANSWER – chandeliers of bananas slaking what little shade there is, until you indicate with your arm, and shudder to a stop . . . A heron sails on the lake’s eddies. Fishermen trawl. The only shards of sound one snatches is the call to prayer, advancing from the opposite shore like smoke.
