On the Road to the Ghost City of Fatehpur Sikri
I promise you, I will tell others your story
and warn them not to stop on the road from Agra
to Fatehpur Sikir, not to stop and take your picture
even though among the Qualandrars, your keepers,
your captivity is a profession passed down from father to son.
At first, I am enchanted until I learn of your capture
as a cub somewhere in the Himalayas,
the piercing inside your nose, the pulling through
of a leather thong, your snout muzzled.
So that today you sit on your haunches by the side of the road
as your master hustles
tourist busses to stop.
He stands and raises a stick over your head
and tugs at the leather leash until you rise
on two feet like us open your arms wide and share
the beauty of a white crescent moon smeared across your chest.
We do not stop and whiz by Korai, the village of your captors,
and are relieved when you are no longer in sight.
Left to anticipate the splendors of Fatehpur Sikri,
a royal city abandoned by a Mughal emperor,
we see further down the road
bear after bear after bear.
(Published in Landscape and Place: An Anthology 2008)
