Scars of Hope

At the wake of dawn, sometimes,

Sometimes even during night,

He submerges himself in a stench

Not quite unlike his own.

He carefully sorts and picks

Shards of broken dreams, sometimes

Uncrushed bottles in their entirety

And puts them slowly in a plastic sack

Lined with his own naivety and innocence.

And each time a sharp shard digs into him

He cringes, looks at the wound for some time

And then waits for it to heal, to become a part

Of himself, glaring chinks of wisdom in his

Thin, frail form that the passers-by named Raju.

He learns to identify cars with tinted windows from afar

And runs, to show them his frail form, his calloused hands

Never knowing what happens inside the car.

Sometimes he gets a rupee, sometimes even two

That Raju keeps tied in his cloth bundle of hope.

Until one day, on the street, Raju lies, in a pool

Of blood, a black tinted-window car is seen in the distance.

And his little sack of hope, jingling with happiness

Is there no more. All that is, is the unmasked stench

Of a corpse, of Raju, who knows, and the morning after 

Red scars of hope in the street, between jagged corners

Of stones set in to create a gray, smooth road.