The Leftovers..

SK Iyer

Serving in the wayside restaurant,
unlike vassals held fief and toiled,
holding on to my life I moiled,
cleaning tables, throwing away leftovers
among the greedy dogs behind the fence.
For a while, setting my eyes
on the fighting dogs, I would weep
thinking about my supper of leftovers.
And always tears
before sleep embraced the night,
eyeing the umbrella with a thousand holes,
light struggling for a passage to earth,
I would lay on the charpoy,
knocked out by tiredness.

Looking back now I smile,
as I cross my fiftieth year,
drubbed past writhes in pain
under the comforts of my future.
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