That night in Mumbai when Brandt asked 'Are you good with speed?' and I said 'Yes'

it was as if
I pillion rode the moon
on the Western Express Highway,

and every mile we raced on his bike
we reclaimed from the sea,

the Goregaon high-rises passed us by
like longing measured on a Richter scale,

and the sky, window-lit at Malad, tripped
onto us,

at Kandivali, the fortieth floors spun out
into the night till the sky was only staircases,

and when he dropped me
by those black mountains of Borivali,
I realized I had held onto my seat
like the black holds onto basalt,
like the skin holds onto bones,
like Mumbai holds onto sea.

Haji Ali

is like Bombay flying a kite in the sea,

and standing by its side,
- water, like creepers, grows
on stones - you see the high tide
happen under your feet.

This is the magic spot where
six hundred years before,
the saint's coffin, adrift, smooth
like ivory, white like bone,
came back from the Arabian sea.

This is the magic spot
where that couple from Borivali
meets, sits together;
the waves rise and come
to keep them,
but still, somehow, leave them
to themselves,
the rock dark-grey-wet
around them the world yet
they sit on noon-stone
- now ivory under the sea -
alone.