Main Road, India

blinking neon atop
begrimed buildings
stand testament to ruin

billboards push
the latest car
shopping multiplex or movie

capitalism targets all
willing or not
we are audience
buy it or not
we are sold

faces armored against dismay
negotiate the sultry
traffic for room

engines rev up to varying speeds
amidst the cackle of horns
and bells and sealed screams
behind car windows

stray dogs know their place in all this
as do vagrants, beggars
and sidewalk defecators

flyovers are underway
the homeless have already
pitched tents below them

in a nation dragging its heels
toward economic progress
the scars of poverty
peel in public