getting to gokarna

“Chai, chai, chai,” the vendor says.

Drinking a Dixie cup of chai
on the overnight train leaving Varkala
the sulfuric wind pushes in
moving our shirts and hair, I can’t hear.
On high tracks, we see the world drop.
A moth crashes on my paper.
We roll through darkness.

The chai-cup stack grows between us:
me, my partner, and 2 traveling companions.
We talk of getting to Nepal
comparing American, Welsh, and Spanish accents
and of getting to Gokarna
a cheaper, faster, and riskier way:

We agree to skip Udupi and get off  
2 hours later at Kumta.

It can be hard to tell what another wants
because the mouth mutters sooner of confidence
the eyes are slower to surface with doubt.

“Briyani, briyani,” the vendor says.

“God is on our side,” he says
in the train car’s metal body
as we slowly coast
with dosa and chapatti.

Above, there is one star.
Head tilting to see it, I see
the light of an oncoming train
emerging from giant palm trees.

We burned our skin in Varkala.
While the waves crested and frothed around us
I threw my hands to the white sun
and cried in the warm salt water
which pushed me, and I understood
it was not moving you.

We are always slowing into a coast.
We take our shoes off and sit closer to our lovers.
A man sings with headphones on.
We laugh.

Regaining momentum out of Cochin
the smell returns:
sewer, egg, flatulence of the earth.
Alive on the tongue.
She sticks incense into the window.
Smoke flutters like friends into the night.

The incense ashes, unnoticed
until at some point it dies
while we drift to sleep at separate times
dreaming between woken moments
I watch a man through the veil of my scarf
a blue figment of the dream

A dream of canteens and machine guns.
Hot forests. A heartbeat in the mud.

We awaken at 7 am at Udupi
and abandon our plan in a frenzied rush
we get off the train.
In the end he wanted
to be lawful.

So we get onto another train.
The train making 10 stops
packed with people, arriving 3 hours later.

Our minds paint the scenario as bad.
The girl drops her lassi out the window.
We mourn the lost path
like buffalo calves, moaning “this is bad.”

“Lassi, lassi,” the vendor says.

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