Nameless in the faceless city,
like its paan shops,
like polygamist buses switching routes
like tubes on rails that squirt at stations
like the human paste with its proletariat smell.

Your company is a clothesline
for my private sorrows.
My complaints don’t disturb you.
That comforts me.

Walking the streets
branching into streets
branching into streets
one can always come back to
where one started.

Sitting by the window
inside the tube on rails
through Sunday’s vacant hours,
one can pass one’s destination
any number of times.

Sitting on the deserted bench
at the busy mouth of the five-star,
and waking up to the shimmer
of city light, as beads of sweat
on your every ripple.

Some day I’ll return,
for you alone know my name.