City

By Abha Iyengar

She was the winding streets of the urban settlements.

The higgledy-piggledy structures overshadowed with their ugliness the beauty of her curves.

They attempted to protect her, in their leaning over into her, from those who walked her everyday to find their release at the end.

It often strained the city-dwellers, her snake-like beauty, asking them to carry on with no tree in sight, no respite, she who exposed her wanton curves for them.

She was dirty.

Yet slick when the night showers washed her clean, slithery and glistening in the afternoon sun that sought to dry her quick lest work be lost, a day be gone.

For it was important to traverse this beautiful enchantress of seduction to make ends meet.

And give it all up to her in her lap at the end of the day, when she provided at her curving sides the addas and thekas for anyone to become drunk, enjoying her abundance even more in the dark by the light of a thousand incandescent bulbs.

These threw strange shadows across her face, and the buildings loomed sinister, as though threatening them to be with her beyond a point, no street walkers or loiterers allowed after a time, they needed to go home after hours of submersion in her headiness.

And those who considered her their home, she cradled in her uneven arms and helped them die.

Tomorrow the same curves would greet them by the light of the sun and they would notice the dirt and the crumbly leaves, the dust, the litter and the broken glass.

She was still not ready to face the day but they wanted her available once again, this time to ride to the end for their own purposes, always their own purposes, she was just a giver of herself, morning or noon or night.

She accepted them, this invasion of herself was allowed, because it made her come alive, to throb with the footfalls, the lopsided hutments, the slick skyscrapers, the mixing of humanity that slapped itself on her in its attempts to survive.

She took it, she had to accept.

And they had to accept her, they had no choice, there was no other way.

No way out also, for once she allowed you access they wanted to be there with her and her alone, regardless of how she was, enchantress, seductress, nibbler of souls, monstrous maw, et al.