BROOM

July 5, 2003
Jaipur

Gently stooped a shadow amply serene
Wilted looks with missing smile
Fast aging housemaid arrives late
Apple face land lady frets and fumes.

She goes from home to home and mansions large
Dens of mean cats and well-fed panthers
Petty dogs and clever fox
Trading charge of right and wrong
Blurring boundaries of hell and home
And royal lions with face stern
Occasionally roaring, often quiet,
Making home a silent grave.

Not every day she sweeps her home
All the day she sweeps others’ floors
Dusting shelves with dusty eyes
In a dark corner she broods aloud:
Who am I and where and why am I?
What is this world and what my sin?
Suffering alone day and night?

A bundle of sunken dry ribs
Living from broom to broom
Lane to lane and drain to drain
From nightmare to empty stares
In roofless room and dark filled nights
A backyard life with endless strife
In thorny sky a fading aimless kite.

A razor sharp unseen thread
Pulls her back on a summer day
In high fever with aching stomach
Empty hand she returns home.
Children cry and husband strikes
Denied of his regular alcoholic drink.
The slender straw quietly sinks.
An autumn leave wafts away
Very far by a gentle breeze.