Excerpts from The Kimnama by Kim Roberts

A fruit market on spindly wooden stands
----------is built by the side of the road.
-----Next to the melons,

a barber lifts his knife,
----------his client's face
-----full of white lather.

A clump of laughing women
----------in a rainbow of saris
-----crosses the street.

Japanese Maruti vans honk
----------past ancient Ambassador cabs
-----built like tanks.

A man clad in a bright pink turban
----------and an orange scarf
-----around his neck smiles without teeth.

The market vendor deposits
----------red onion skins in the gutter
-----and three cows gather,

push their noses deep in rich reddish-purple,
----------stopping traffic,
-----as if they knew they were gods.

 

Vipul's astrologer recommends
----------he wear a blue sapphire
-----and make a pilgrimage

to the site of Krishna's birth
----------to bathe in the water there.
-----Maybe then his luck will improve.

 

The smell of the streets
----------grows sharper at night.
-----Spices, wood smoke,

dust, cattle, and sweat. Chandan,
----------a sandalwood paste,
-----used in Hindu temple rites.

The burned smell of chapatti,
----------round wheat bread made
-----over an open flame.

The faint smell of drying flowers
----------strung together
-----in orange garlands.

Incense, more spice. And more dust.
----------Dust wrapping
-----everything in a thin coat

that gets inside your nostrils,
----------that enters your food,
-----that cannot be washed away.