I owe you
the lightening of my step
my ability to noiselessly open
the creakiest gate
and my invention
of the sign language I use
to urge the girl to run upstairs
before you take note of us.
Kaun hai? you ask
in the language I know
so little of
I sound assertive when I speak it.
I assure you it’s only me
one half of the monthly
sixteen thousand rupees piling
in the storage bed you keep
under lock and key.
My yuppie ass dreams
of splitting
your bald head open
the morning after
as you lean
on the front porch
powering your transistor
into the millennium.
I trust your tunnel vision
not to tell last night’s skirt
from last week’s salwar,
when Ladki kaun hai?
you ask and I so want
to shame you, I would have
said “cousin” had
the girl not been Russian,
so I settled for “colleague”
in this age of twenty
-four-hour workdays—
this is my engagement
with the economy
like yours, Lord Vishnu
laying on your cot waiting
for cash you know will come
by the fifth of every month.
コメント