Friday, June 18, 2010

Boundaries

Lines imagined on the body of earth,
lines that divide the world
into us and them,
vie with lines drawn in the mind
of caste and creed, class and colour
for possession of man's soul.
Lines that become visible with glass shards,
sentries and watch-posts,
sheltering walled edens from
the claws of the teeming millions,
from the dust and grime outside.

In a city, nameless and faceless,
a half-ripe mango in its innocence,
doing the unthinkable crossed the fence
of a castled paradise, swaying
on a branch kissing the earth.
A boy of age indeterminate,
nameless and faceless
in a city just like him,
did the unimaginable too,
raising his hand to remove
the saucy mango from its perch.

Boundaries, their existence threatened,
cried out in desperate alarm,
Determined to protect their sanctity
sentries rushed out in full strength,
The boy was quickly made aware
of the insurmountability of boundaries,
Any attempt to blur them
would threaten after all
the identity of those within,
and destroy
the ordained order of things.

The boy with hollowed cheeks, sunken chest,
grimy hair stranger to oil or comb,
his body leaking blood
that coagulated in his eyes,
unzipped his pants at the backyard wall,
let lose a stream of piss, an arching river
That rising upwards challenged the gods,
and falling down made jigsaw patterns
on the wall, giving shape to his dreams yet unseen,
eroding, dissolving, erasing
the lines that demarcate man from man.

A pungent aroma of nitrite
overpowered
the rose-laden air.

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