We speedwalk through the park and she’s

actually jogging but I pretend not to notice.

The people in front of us are temporary

monuments we pass, our well-oiled

plaits swinging down our necks like

rows of glittering beetles creeping into

jasmine garlands. With every step we take

we kill. Centipedes and ants crush to death

under my mother’s Bata shoes but murder

is not new to us, we who waterboard

cockroaches in the bathroom every

other day, who stick forks into bowls

of இடியாப்பம் writhing like tangled necks

of white peacocks, who scrape roadkill

into steel dustbins with black tutus and

pretend the cracked car glass is a fairy

wing zoomed in. As we turn another corner,

a street vendor hawks reverse experiences.

For 2000 rupees, a burnt car becomes

whole again, the smoke pouring back down

from the heavens. Double that, and a body

rises up from a pool, millions of bubbles

ascending to the surface. Multiply it by a

100 and this elephant-skin path will take us

back to the decade figures like ours graced

magazine covers, where we’d not have to kill

off our cells like we do now constantly, where

our bodies would be more than a sculpture,

                                            a canvas,

                                               a right.