a better place


Last Goodbye. (Shahidul Alam. 1996, Dhaka. Courtesy of the artist and Emami Art)

i

upon the tarmac
them widening wings prepare
for routine flight, the wheels turn
the same but we ominously ask for whom.

language is a force of habit.


what is new in this land about men leaving
with no prospect of return?
what is new about a better place one may not come to find?
augurs of the free market daily portend the rise and fall
of working men in tall rooms. it is what it is.

all labour is abstract and the masters prefer it cheap.

 

ii

the wheels turn.
so must i for the sound of your voice to reach me,
here up-close beyond any notion of touch, as darkly
as your gaze fixed on my chin.
caught in the machinic twilight of
one ever-arriving future,
we smile as one does to disperse a threat.
others await: make way
before you waver.
we go through the motions.
now it is a matter of seeing it through.