EGO presents two poems by Michael Creighton: "SOUTH DELHI ROADSIDE, 9PM" and "WITNESS". Michael Creighton is an American elementary school teacher married to an Indian writer. Two years ago, they moved with their three young children to Delhi, where they now happily reside. Michael practices his Hindi and does research for his writing by discussing politics and life with anyone who will talk to him. His poetry has appeared in newspapers and magazines including The Sunday Oregonian, The Asian Age, kaleidowhirl, and Ruminate.

SOUTH DELHI ROADSIDE, 9 PM

As he sells his last
half-melted mango popsicle
and starts to push
his cart home,

he thinks that by now
the ice must be melting
high in Himachal.

Perhaps they are banking
the fire early tonight. Perhaps
they are stepping out
to piss.

Perhaps they are watching
winter wheat ripen
in moonlight.

WITNESS

Like other good men from South Delhi,
her husband drives each month
by the temple, where a few hundred
dusty souls form a ragged line along
the north side of the road. From the seat of his car,
he feeds them – ice cream or pears
in summer, oranges or apples in winter.

Ice cream and fruit are not adequate,
she says. He nods, but never follows,
as she joins the jumbled line,
her neatly pressed salwar
receding to a point of rice paddy green
in the torn and faded crush of cloth.
One soft hand extended with theirs,
she stands and prays in the dry, brown heat.

Photographs by Abeer Hoque