FOREIGN: KAVITA MOKHA Next Poem:....................................................................................................................................... Back to Poetry Index

Standing tall and lifeless
By the boulevard
Amidst skyscrapers
That surpass,
And shadow your form.
You, the microcosm
Of perpetuity
Of my human existence.

Each day, I stop momentarily
I sense resignation
In your presence
An immigrant?
A misfit?
Away from your own kind?

I see lovers pass you by in delirium
All the while trampling
The now insensate
Extensions of you
That line the sidewalks.

You have born witness
To a span of history
Inert, yet rooted.

Surely, we have something in common
I, the brown-skinned, minimum wage employee
Caged in walls of organized concrete
Across the boulevard
Serving ambrosia to blue-eyed strangers
You, the lone tree on the parkway.

Kavita Mokha is a graduate student of English at City University of New York and a New York City Teaching Fellow, working at a middle school in Queens, NY. She was born in Punjab, India and is proficient in Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu. She intends to work on poetry translation projects as part of her graduate work. Her poetry has been published in Indian literary magazine 'Akhar'.

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