Made in India, Immigrant Song #3

(a note from a New York City streetwalker)

Some worker in the sweat

of Madras, some former weaver

from Kashmir, some hand in Ahmadabad’s dust,

has been pounding iron again.

The New York City streets swell with feet;

multihued tracks glide over the flat steel

disks which offer entry into the city’s interior

lairs. The writing seeps through our soles

though few fathom the signature, “Made

in India.” These alien

metal coins, transported

like my birth, mask

a labyrinth of tunnels

in a city where origin

and destination are confused.

Sometimes I wear the stamp

on myself; sometimes I feel

the wear of a surrounding world erase

the fine etchings. Here the imprint

of India is a traveler’s

mutation: the body’s chamber is made

hole, the skin not smooth, circular,

but cloaking a bumpy network

of channels, spirit mobile, expanding.

from Terrain Tracks (New Rivers Press, 2006) by Purvi Shah