The Slum-dweller

Curled inside a concrete pipe

Under the bridge

They had lived

Their hearts thudding against ribs,

As each trained clattered

And faded into distance.

Where they slept once

There’s now shredded concrete:

Naked bricks and rubble,

Chewed by mighty machines

Of the city fathers

Who said, “Of outsiders we must be free,

To build roads and Metros.”

The children, they cried

And cried to sleep

Till their throats were hoarse

And tongues dry, parched

Their hunger insatiate

From food foraged in garbage.

They were awaiting a peaceful tomorrow,

When today’s hubbub didn’t end

And the dream of a future

Faded before their eyes
The place they sqatted and shat
Became the swimming pool of a tower
The open place they went to fuck, a car park.

Together they journeyed

To a piece of sodden land

By the nullah in which floated scum and plastic

To a new life

A new beginning,

A new place to defecate
A new place to procreate.