Even For Winter

they sat there in the evening light, cups of tea
and hot bhajiyas on the plastic table, people calling
out from the street as they passed, asking about their
children, their mothers, even as their wives waited
in their kitchens and bedrooms, they sat there and
thought about a pink cheeked girl, how they could
steal her, keep her, break her, destroy her, and they
smiled at the people passing and asked for more tea
and took calls from uncles and brothers and the birds
sang as they came back to their nests and they talked
of a child and how they would kidnap her and sedate
her and who would rape her and who would kill her
even as their wives waited in their kitchens and
bedrooms and their mothers prayed louder so
their sons would live longer and they asked for more
tea and smoked cigarettes till their arousals were
hidden in the dusk under the cheap plastic table and
girls, little girls, bringing goats and horses and cows
home from the hills walked past, not knowing, not
seeing, and they called out to them and asked about
their brothers and fathers and ordered more cups
of tea as their wives waited and mothers prayed
and a lone god silently cried for tomorrow and
a flag fluttered one last time in the distance.

It was cold, bitterly cold, even for a himalyan winter.