Cages, urban, iron
Deprived of the sky
And the ground,
Suspended in air
A woman sits, in a
Tiny balcony that doubles as a flower-bed
In a high-rise, tenth floor, in the
Vertical Mumbai,
Reading a morninger
In late afternoon,
Legs stretched out, cell phone nearby.
Human face breaking the dull monotony
of a tall bee-hive, windows closed/curtained;
Piles of the concrete cages upon cages
Going up in the carbon-coated sky;
Dream apartments—standardized and
Exorbitantly-priced, to keep you working for life.
A bird flutters in a cage nearby
An Indian Golden Oriole wistful,
Searching for a full sky.
Sunil Sharma is a Mumbai-based senior academic, critic, literary editor and author with 19 published books, some solo, some joint.