and the streets are running out
with people and rickshaws, motorbikes (there,
four adults on a single cycle), water buffalo
stomping through traffic,
tilting their chins in response
to horns begging them to move.
The traffic slips ahead,
crawling over itself like snakes in a pit,
falters, stops to ruminate, begins again.
And a child knocks
on the window, shines her red teeth,
seeks money to buy water,
or for the man who owns her.
He’s out there, somewhere. Everything kicks
again, we move through the storm of dust.
A man leaps into a moving bus,
his plastic sandal falls
and tumbles to die upon the street. The bus keeps on,
traffic stops.
another shoe flies
from the bus door, expelled as from a kick,
either angry, resigned, or neither.
Kevin recently graduated with an MFA from Indiana University and works as an English and SAT tutor.
