Kathmandu, Mark Wyatt

                    Street

children tumble over

                  the monument steps surrounding

                us, shyly & so plaintively begging

              “one rupee”. Offers received include:

            “rickshaw, tiger balm, hashish”, hoarsely

           whispered daily in the wild, garbage-strewn,

         tourist-hungry slum-quarters of a paradoxically

        benign but unthinkingly cruel city, where cows as

       patient as mystics amble safely through the chaotic

       traffic, before lying down by the roadside, to gnaw

       at orange peel & plastic like rats, in company with

       the dogs (so famished they’ve declared an amnesty on

       humans, expending whatever energy’s left them on the

       howling night). Medieval streets. Dirt. Poverty. Oh!

         the kind of city where you can see a boy holding

         a tethered goat outside a butcher’s and glimpse a

          pensive expression on the goat’s face as if it

           were a passenger boarding a ship it’s trying

             to memorize the scene for future recall:

               the colour of that woman’s sari, the

                 number, depth & muddiness of the

                   puddles. Just above its head

                     are knife, rag, flies &

                            goat-meat.