Cowboys

His dark skin glistened like a bottle bottom—

button eyes cindered knee-high— beside

my white horse. We galloped away

chasing the renegades, shooting from our hips.

Elastic waist pants slipped down

our kindergartner behinds­­­­­— 

We were all shades of brown then.

We prayed to the Hindu Gods

in the Bellanvila Buddhist temple.

Tonto carried the offering—

fruits and incense flowered

over his head in a rattan basket.

We smashed coconuts, dotted

our temples with kumkum—

sat all-night on paduru mats

enfolded in the pirith chant

tethered to a holy string.

We didn’t know then—

one-day they would come

carrying voting lists, sticks and stones

fire bottled in their fists—

looking for the others among us.

In the distance, the roofs burned

like camphor

but with no scent.

I lost track of what happened

to my dark mask, white cape

those ivory handled pistols.

I thought I’d saved the world.

Lost Column

Bite marks on the wall,



boot stains on the rug,



your crumpled red tee shirt



chokes on the wrecked bed.





They sniffed around in your room

for hours,



clawed through the shadows,



lifted prints off your thoughts,



left with your satchel,

spilling words along the way.





No scrapbook of your columns,



no tin box of your poems,



no pirith chant, 



no séance.





In the belly of the jungle, 



on a pyre of tires,



they erased you 



word by word