Glass

She stood before me in mangled pain

The leper girl,

And with hollow unending eyes

Thrust the stump of her arm at me through the glass that separated us

Glass is so complicated,

I remember, finding it funny when Baba, our cook,

Tried to post a letter through the car window,

Not realising that the window was rolled up,

But now I see, the cleaner the glass the more deceptive

Its only the stains on the window that shows you its really there,

Like truth, which isn't always pretty

There is a loud thump on the car window,

I jerk back to consciousness, confronted by what must have been a hand,

I stared at it, enchanted by its distortion, its ugly mottled coloration,

And then, talking to the driver, even while I was talking to her wounds,

I said, perhaps we should find a new route to school,

And the uniformed man who serves my whims

Nodded a jee, accha,

And stepped on the pedals.

I heard her give a low moan of disappointment at her lack of success,

But I did not look back at her, through my air conditioned luxury,

I frowned instead, at the mark of her grubby stump on the window,

Clean the windows this evening, I say to the driver,

I don't want to see any stains on them