.Can’t occupy the same space at the same time
unless, of course, you land in Dhaka, rickshaws
.
five or six abreast. They are all here:
studded metal backboards ablaze with red flowers,
.
Heineken boxes, a Bangladeshi star with blue eyes,
peacocks, pink fans of filigree. The drivers sweat
.
and strain in the plaid lungis, and each face
seems to say Allah takes and Allah
.
gives. A woman breathes into her green shawl
against the dust on the road’s median. A man
.
with a plaid scarf (surplus from The Gap)
slaps the rump of a passing gray car
as though it’s a horse or a dog. You are there, too,
your maroon sleeves begin to stick
.
despite your deodorant. Under your orna,
a laminated map and digital camera
.
cradled in your lap. One strand of silver
wiry by your ear. Bits of children’s songs
.
snag in your windpipe. Other words surface:
sweatshop and abject poverty, and you let them.
.
They mix with the low rumbling that began
on the plane, ms and bs tumbling, amplified
.
in the streets: the rickshaw bells’ light metal,
the nasal peal of horns. On this continent,
.
the ocean’s giant tongue has swept away
miles of coastline, and bodies flood the water.
.
Dust sifts into your lungs and sinks—feline,
black, to remain long after you leave.
