Poem - Sir, you have dropped your bag

Sir, you have dropped your bag

What did your brother report?

That you went out to buy eggs.

You picked carefully, candled

each, your hands before the

light. You are Santosh Kumar.

You are no fool.

Mehrauli market, New Delhi. Bellow

of accordion, beat of a drum. Flap

and thwack of linen on the balconies

above. Fizz of weaving tooting bikes,

a web of wires dangle light, fires for

the rasp and toss of cooking food. 

Trader shouts amidst the acrid stink

of fruit, of dried fish, of warm leather.

What did you hear of the bike's approach?

When those men hurled the polythene bag,

why did you hear the rustle and the thud?

Why did you possess that quiet politeness,

that humanity to pick it up and offer it back?

Your brother never said. The bomb took

your head off. You were equal to its puny

mass so it stole just you, in all that throng.

Powerless I wish you rescued just before

the end, transmigrated, echoing Tiresias.

Of a sudden you were a kingfisher overhanging

the great river, beating your wings, bobbing

your head. Your oil eye judged the distance.

Your missile beak swooped, emerged, settled it. 

Perched, you beat the catch to death then

returned to your burrow, the earth above you.

What did your brother report?

That you went out to buy eggs.

What did they say you said?

Sir, you have dropped your bag.

Sir, you have dropped your bag.

Sir, you have dropped your bag.