The streets are riddled with potholes, the kind that make

you wonder if you could ever count them as you walked home.

I don’t mind potholes, for it is always easier

to drown in them like a tadpole with a penchant for endings.

I look at these potholes every day from the window seat of buses

and in this October heat, right after the cyclone, the water is dirty.

A little rainbow forms in them, glistening like a mirage

in this desert of a city, looking for something to quench

our thirst for tomorrow. This illusion is so light and fading

like the light in the ticket conductor’s eyes that I look away.

If I stare any longer, I will fall in like it is quicksand

and miss my stop. That would not bode well for I just started

this journey and the roads seem friendlier each morning but

grow estranged every night. The street lights flicker and

the mirage goes to sleep, its nose whistles till a pigeon

flies past, dipping its neck, colouring itself pink, green and silver.

The next day the news reads that too many potholes

might lead to accidents , and something should be done.

When I leave for college, the omnipresent potholes look

unsettling as if they know something I don’t.

On the bus, I hear a kid saying that what if

the potholes are just stars, not in the Milky Way

but in this city. When people die, they become potholes.

Maybe, that’s why they form little rainbows to let the others know.