The Transfiguring Places

They teach you how to survive in the wild,

How stalk a quarry, which roots to eat,

Outdoor skills of no use in the street,

Where in sola hat of branching horns you chase


Its in the mind, the transfiguring,

Trysting places (banks, grocery stores) and

The trees you walk under, escaping,

The

And a wind, long-toed, jostling you back

To the rear of a queue or the edge

Of a street, leaving you stamping the ground


With your feet and shaking your hatted head.

Wise up, I say, there’s no running away

But taking the counterfoil or receipt

Crushed in your pocket in your composite stride.

A.K.Mehrotra