Ivy

That somnolent branch
Bottle-green, solitary
Dewy and alive
After a drizzle
Sits on a red brick wall
And moves with the balmy breeze
Breaking my morning reverie

I gaze at it
Framed in the grimy window
Of the Mumbai local
As toes in battered chappals
Scuttle up and down the bars

For a moment, I forget
The repugnance of reeking
Filth on the tracks
And the jostling-for-space human flesh
As the babel of screams
Turns into a fading echo