Bonier than drumsticks,
wasted as flowers,
she hawks,
is Shyama
crouched on road edges;
smiles dripping from
a pot-holed mouth,
she talks of
lone daughter's wedding
to a boy, a bank peon;
she will be free
in Saphale,
alone,
wiping shadows
off mud walls;
Titan Rani,
Titan a bulge
on surgical knees,
Rani a pug,
are not in Church for Mass;
'my church' misses both:
the prayer and bark;
they tap their home
with walking sticks;
Old Man,
wrapped in jeans, T-shirt,
unwraps at the grotto,
looking beyond folded palms
searching a smoke;
Gandhari,
bright as her
Saphale farm products,
packs up Deepavali cash,
to roof a broken home;
Leave no stains
on part-tarred,
part-cemented,
Link Road,
feathered with waste
of Deepavali crackers.
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