A Song 121

A shop headline
in italics:
Valasarvakkam Sore
(some say 't' was never there;
some, it walked away);
customers wait in irregular
curves
for the owner,
in a trance
over a wooden, money box.
Walkers wait
for cars and bikes
to offer ways.
Not on.
A bent-back old lady
waits
for the sun to streetlight her street;
as the first ray pencils her;
she nudges
a holed, tin roller
with white rangoli,
tacked to a long stick,
her walking stick,
doling a rangoli
A wait
for powdered dots and lines
to make sense of
a graffiti.