2 Poems

by Rohith Sundararaman

the evening we got hit

by the meteor, i was out
shopping for groceries at
the bazaar. the fruits were
especially good that day:
apples kissed by lipstick,
mangoes sewn in gold and
air bursting of sapotas.
the vendor i bought my
greens from had gone to
get leeks. instead his son, no
smaller than ten, stood
watching over the stall that ran
out of a cart big enough to
hold him. i held aloft some
pears and told him to pack it
with the rest. he weighed
them out as shadows speared
the earth and sky nudged
sun into soil. biting into
a guava, i walked back home
when it seemed like the sun
came unstuck and as it scorched
through the sky, i remembered
i hadn't collected my change yet.

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the shoeshine boy at the railway station

his eyes sift for shoes
as a million legs converge
on the strip of concrete and
each leg is a bird in the sky
for him: look away and it is
gone, so he keeps his eyes
to the ground and soon
he is on his haunches, buffing
away to yield a clear-lake shine
which throws back his smile
as he stretches to pocket
change and when the train pulls
away, the smile recedes into
a burrow of his mind - a glass
egg tucked away for safekeeping

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Rohith Sundararaman is a twenty-three year old poet writing out of Bombay, India. His work has appeared or will appear in elimae, eclectica, word riot, gud magazine, decomp, defenestration, tipton poetry journal, death metal poetry and other places. When he is not dreaming of poetry, he is busy taking courses at a local business school.