We’re due at The Press Club at six for a briefing
on the Padma Bridge. Rivers here drown
in their own plenitude. I don’t normally wear pearls,
but shalwar glamour has boxed me into a corner.
All I can see of our driver is his left arm and watch.
Koranic verses swing from the rear-view mirror.
No safety belts in this air con bubble, all doors locked.
Every swerve is a punch as he weaves between
trucks of workers back from the brick kilns, their faces
streaked with ash, arms dangling to catch air.
It’s all tuk-tuk fracas, log jam, rickshaw horn-honk
like geese calling to each other across water. A woman,
shawled and angry, hits our car with her fist, shouts
something at me in Bengali. Our host refuses to translate.
These pearls are beginning to burn my neck; iced air
can feel as suffocating as heat. A young boy hobbles
alongside the car, knocks at my window. Bananas, lady?
I shake my head apologetically. He holds up a bigger bunch.
