Departed Trains | Day 01 | #NaPoWriMo

Departed Trains | Day 01 | #NaPoWriMo

A short, sun-burnt hawker

strides down the dozing platform.

A wicker basket over his head,

balanced on a cloth-bun.

The corrugated station roof,

old and season beaten,

drapes the concrete in a tattered shade.

Potholes of light shining at his feet,

as he glides through the hot daylight shadows.

In a raspy voice, he calls out

'Ice-cream Kulfi. Kulfi Ice-cream',

almost swallowing the word 'ice' in the process,

startling a child awake on a nearby bench.

He turns to his mother, lips drawn down.

She looks away, not acknowledging -

a strip of white light by her face

travelling into her blouse.

The hawker already slow in his tracks,

stops in positive anticipation.

He uncaps an aluminium cone from his basket,

pushes a wooden stem and pulls out Delight -

cold, white fumes curling from its buttermilk tip.

The mother loosening a knot in the veil of her saree,

picks out a five-rupee coin and places it on

the child's stretched palm.

He steps down beaming,

passes the coin to the hawker

and grabs his Kulfi.

A microphone then crackles overhead,

disturbing the pigeons in their high metal roosters.

Bardhaman-Howrah local draws hissing into the station.

The quiet dismantled for a moment,

replaced by the engine’s breathing;

and the sun eclipsed in a swirling cloud of dust.

The Kulfiwala boards it, as faces suddenly

come alive inside the compartment.

Slowly the train starts to chug out,

pulling away with it the cold metal shadows.

Silence falls back, almost as immediately,

like a sea joining, ripped by speedboat trail.

In the child’s happy eyes, there I catch my burning wait.

Abandoned amid the scorching summer,

for me to take a different train home.

The kulfi melts, like memories in my heart,

running down his thin arms to the hook of his elbow,

as we cherish in the back of our mouth,

the sweet aftertaste of a love long gone. 

  

© Sobhan