Chennai

This city is like a dusty window

waiting to be wiped

I take my thumb to my tongue

and wait for a squeak on the glass

Nothing

I listen more intently

that could be a bird

calling out like a big heaving lung

from the ribcage of a tree

A horn calls back

from the long roads

carrying us through like intestine

This city stretches

like its tarpaulin sheets

blue and dirty, and

full of sand

As though the beach

never learnt where to end

and the people neither;

They hear

salt water foam

at a traffic junction

Madras

is a large nylon net

All of us either nethili or vanjaram

Small fish, big fish

waiting to be seasoned

and eaten

This city,

is it a place or its motion? A sleep-prone afternoon bus

My queer old city

An un-oiled hinge

Open door

Something like both

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-samjam Can you tell I have a love-hate relationship with Chennai? I've been in Trichy for so long now, it's started to feel more like home. Odd. Anyway, I wrote the first half maybe a year ago and the last two paragraphs at 2am and now. I've been reading this small book called Seaside Stories about the fishing community in Chennai with all of these evocative gorgeous pictures and it made me appreciate the place. Anyway. Thanks for reading, toodles <3

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