The warm wind blows,
ripe with warm sticky memories
of childhood summers -
scraped knees, marbles and kites
and elbows dripping golden yellow
mango juice.
I lie sprawled –
half on–half off
the couch,
feeling a lazy caress
as the air sluggishly drifts
from corner of the room to
another.
The Hindu flutters briefly,
the pages fighting a losing
battle
against the humidity.
And then it too lies limp
letting the heat wash over it.
On the front page,
a bespectacled man smiles and waves
sporting a coffee cup halo
Dry leaves rustle on the concrete
outside,
the crunch competing with the
sound
of the tender coconut vender -
“Fresh and Tender”
“Full of Juice”
he claims.
“Beat the heat”
he promises in a fit of sales
talk fancy.
His voice is soon drowned out,
by the man who pushes
a blue hand cart
piled with baby mangoes
waiting to be sold by the kilo
and pickled
by many a household
in anticipation of
a time without mangoes
With a jerk, the fan stumbles to
a halt,
filling the room with a sultry
silence,
and making no difference to the
breeze
who does as she pleases,
and keeps her own hours.
The outside cacophony
competes with
the silence inside,
as I escape this heat
to the summers of my past –
where the winds were never this
warm
and the mangoes were always
juicier.
