Like mercenaries they come. Clouds of dust. Thronging
on the dry shoulder of that rare plateau breeze.
A wretch staggers in.
Sapped of his will, his pride, his chutzpah.
With two other almost-dead humans in tow:
a wife and a boy of five.
Tongues squirm. Inside their slushy mouths. Heavy as lead.
Baked lips beg. For mercy. But the Sun denies.
For a pot of water, they crave.
Barked down by the well-to-do household’s dog,
the rich owner hollers:
“Water? How dare you, you low-lives?”
Aghast at the unwelcome violation of
the preset social order, the young family is forced.
By a hostile crowd. To flee. To quench their
thirst at a dirty pool.
Swirling with waters of all kinds.
Hugging and kissing without bias.
A little from here, a little from there. And that gushing little from the
rich man’s broken septic tank.
Out of fear, out of hunger, and for
a myriad of reasons beyond his control,
he goes down that putrid sewer.
And comes out a dead man.
An inert crowd watches. In hateful silence.
The kin washing his body in a waterfall of tears.
Their eyes meet briefly:
her’s quietly radiating immeasurable rage,
and the rich man’s, flitting with guilt but unapologetic.
Then Fate strikes.
Like a potato bag split open, he buckles.
Decades of decadence and a broken liver.
His wife’s cries drown the wail of crows.
Your man can save mine: she begs. The widow smirks.
The doctor implores. The rich woman begs again and she relents.
“But he hates us low-lives. How could he carry a part of my father?”
The surgeon looks at his mother, and then the lad:
‘Sometimes we are’: he says: ‘Saints and Sinners in equal measure’
Madras Courier originally ran as a broadsheet with a poetry section. It was a time when readers felt comfortable sharing glimpses of their lives through verse. If you have a poem you’d like to submit, do email us at [email protected].
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