top of page

Ashish Kumar Singh

Bus Ride

Through the window, the world
rushes by— the wheat goldening fields
after fields and the sky so blue,
it’s almost ocean. The bus driver plays
an old song about an old love
that has been lost for quite some time.
I know it is difficult to forget,
but look, the world gives so much
distraction to live by, it’s almost
sufficient. The shop that we passed
has only a thatched roof looking
proudly new, a stove and a pan with tea
threatening to spill. The normalcy
of everything around tells you
no one cares the amount of heartache
or sadness you lift. You are
but a lone soldier, carrying your own
wounded body. The song changes
and now it is the girl’s chance to claim
our sympathy. Having never heard
of it before, I start to like it and I guess
this is how everything else happens—
a bit of attention and you fall in love.
The bus jerks forward, then stops.
When the dust settles back,
I see a man in the distance, with a long
scythe and in just his underwear,
cutting the wheat. His body the colour
of what he cuts, but darker. Since,
I’m a man who can imagine a future
with anybody, here I imagine it with him.
In this precise moment, all I want is
for the man to look here,
in my eyes, to the dream I’m building
for us. Then the bus starts again
and the man recedes like the kind of life
      we only wish but never get.

bottom of page