Cab Ride in Khobar

Taxicabs moan through the streets,
neglected hope smiles through clenched
teeth, souring the blossoming day
roughening the tough path for drivers,
scorn belching as their engines rev,
sand scattering and coating their cars.

Coasting along this gilded corniche,
taxi-driven by an underweight Indian,
smiling and offering up mild pleasantries
quietly giving me pieces of his life-story
to smooth the cracked surface of a
work-clogged day, to harden our resolves.

He talks of southern India and his family
there, while he glides effortlessly between
maniacal white Landrovers, cutting him up
from both sides, he panics not,
cluttered though the road is, talks of cricket
and his favourite player, Tendulkar, square drives.

And all this for a mere pittance, I offer
a tip but it's rejected with a flash of white
teeth, and I'm back at my apartment
shutting out the chicken-with-head-cut-off
city, and sitting in my chair, breathing
air-con air, a sigh of relief, and disbelief,
at the fight for life going on beyond the door.