A Bangladeshi Story

On this train
Passing through perfect houses
with brightly coloured well kept gardens,
I think back in the not-to-distant past
On the road to Mongla, at the side of the river
waiting for a bridge to be fixed.

The ramshackle shops selling all sorts
cigarettes to sweets to car batteries.
7Up, biscuits and ripe brinjal.
I head someone speak
they motioned for us to sit down.

We ate and drank.

Despite the dirt and lack of social convention I was accustomed to;
there was a surprising degree of normality and order.

Children swam down stream,
and women wash clothes in the dirty water,
followed by their bodies in the thick grey mud.