by Vahni Capildeo. From Measures of Expatriation, winner of the Forward prize for best collection
for Shivanee Ramlochan
The staring heterosexuals disembark,
having stared, openly, having picked the direction
for their stares: a few cubic inches,
mostly compacted of women; staring
like a newish smoking, asphyxiation by kilometres;
the disembarking heterosexuals pit
picador arms against the heads of females,
high-end climate-change cologne;
they have vetivered and tidalled out.
Two women, seated, remain
like money, like any underground objects,
like a philosophy of inexistence, like earliness, unperceived.
Soya latte meets box handbag
meets lack of glossy magazine
meets lightweight summer brastrap,
countenance facing another, scarlet and opposite.