This Creepy Cold. Poem by Radhamani Sarma

Six long hours of wait and sit,
In the now and then crowded
Platform, cold as shreds of
Creepiness that might capture you.
You watch the red liveried coolies
Who load on their heads, to unload
their burden of family sustenance.
Why not trolleys instead of coolies?
If we can’t erase the word ‘coolie’
In the dictionary of our life,
there is no end of strife.
Their looks don’t bend down
On the narrow steps, their eyes
Positioned straight. What cold
Bugs them? Rubs the hardened,
Seasoned skin that lifts those
Luggage/baggage?
By my side, another child,
Herself a small child of hardly
Seven, holding another, hanging bony,
itches, Criss cross each other.
I am saddened, when will India
Improve? On to the train,
‘mind the gap’, yet another nightmare,
I go on in the tilt.