World News

A motel room in India

is a motel room in America.

Door locked, mirrors smudged,

beds made as a TV replays the world

flashing frenzied streets,

glint of high-rise windows

above the beggars,

crowded hospital halls, skinny models,

flooding fields, explosions, courtrooms

full of men in suits and ties and confusion.

A commercial break, a psychotic break –

face cream, hair gel, blue jeans, cell phones.

Coming up next: the homeless in Mumbai,

the homeless in New Orleans.

India bleaches her skin.

America wants a tan.

written in Ernakulum, South India