Monday traps

The uber waits.

The Trinity signal takes about four minutes to 
change. If we clear it, we will be swallowed by the 
multi-level procession on M. G. Road: the bikes, 
the pedestrians, the lumbering cars, the buses, 
and the metro slithering overhead. The hierarchy 
of perpetual motion in this urban dystopia. Where 
trying to get somewhere is a parameter of success. 

In that overwhelming, noisy channel of commerce, 
Bougainvillea, shocking pink, defies the acrid smog. 
The couple walking past the park where an old colonial 
statue used to stand, laugh. Not even the belch of a 
hundred fossil-fuelled bellies can keep young love down. 
Above the train, pigeons soar, briefly. There are myths 
somewhere, about why they adapted to the city.  This city. 

And then the siren gets closer. There’s nowhere for 
the ambulance to go. Cars inch to one side as if the 
road is stretchable. As if the vehicle is marshmallow. 
Someone jumps off a Suzuki and waves his hands about, 
directing the melee. The paramedic shakes his head. 
The lane clears. Like a break in the clouds. The 
ambulance rushes ahead to the next signal. Death 
stuck in traffic. Life wanting a better place to die. 

I think of a lethal leaf of the cape sundew: devious, 
attractive, trapping its prey in its slimy tentacles.
There is a chilling violence to this deception. But the
plant also bears flowers – delicate pink-purple blooms, 
that only last a day. A few hours. A surreal contradiction. 
A multi-level existential system. Flowers blooming
above the leaves. Clear air for pollinators. Venomous 
traps for others. Evolution too clever by half.

The Uber hasn’t moved an inch. Behind us, 
another cab honks. And another. The leaf bends 
down, its million arms ready and open.

#Poetry