I learn to wash off, in communal nights,
Dust, always hovering, inhabiting
The skin tethered to the periphery.
The strays are loud but they’re mine,
Fear trips the shadow sometimes,
That too is mine.
The worshippers are fitful,
In temples leaning behind district ruins,
Their notes piercing clean through the night.
The lord is angled up, ascended with foreigners;
The devil casts his lot with the homestead,
Descended from foreigners.
When we speak of good things,
We mustn’t point to the sky.