Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










Luncheon in the Abandoned City

There have been no hands
to wind clocks for months now,
thus, restaurants rely on instinct
and the shadows on pavements
to signal when to prepare for service.

Only salt and pulses remain
so, ladles spend the morning
meting them out in melancholy portions
onto row upon row
of poker-faced plates.

At noon, cutlery goes through the motions –
a mechanical dance of luncheon
gnashing salt into powder
agitating the pulses
till the gong shudders
                      and they all fall down.