Do you feel lighter?
Heavy in a different sense.
Heavy because I have seen too much.
I’ve seen her pregnant on the roadside and not wanting to
bear her own weight.
I didn’t guess, she told me.
And I’ve heard of how she had to wait until nightfall to
relieve herself.
I’ve tasted the sweet made with love because I kept you
company and eased the burden of loneliness just for a while.
I felt tears overflowing in my eyes when I left you, and I
saw your concern for my health.
I saw her breaking rocks with a baby on her back.
Bent beneath the fodder I saw a face as the car drove past
her.
And I recognized the paradox, like Paul Theroux said, that
India’s poor were its wealth.
The world’s wealth rests on their backs.
Fairness is a word we use as kids and gradually as we get
older we grab it by the neck and violently cut it from our vocabulary.
We’ve learned that nothing is fair and that there are no
explanations, even when you most desire them.
But you look like you are from here, what about her?
She looks like she could be from any village here.
