If I ever have children
I’ll teach them about god
On
Family road trips
In a mini-van
With a candy wrapper carpet
And warm melted crayons
In the seats grand canyons
As the Arizona sun sets
Over the Copper State
Where you could almost swear
It was the red dusted desert
Painting the sky
Rain-less-bows of color
With broken butte brush stroke
Across the restless desert
As you twist around in your seat-belted
Body of eight years old
To the rearview window
Of an AC blasted
Softly singing stereo
Escaping out gaping windows
Leaving nothing behind
But a heatwave
Trying to settle down
Tire teased dust
For the evening stretch ahead
That you think might never end
As if god was using the road as a string
He had tied tightly to the family car
Carving the way though
Salty cactuses drinking licks of sand left by
Dirt devils dancing across the graves of
Lizards
Who pretended they didn't exist
But couldn’t fool the hawks
Who watched and waited
For more than just a lost tail
Or a forgotten story
But something clay
Concretely carved in to caves and caverns
With rock and bone
Something solid to hold on to

But my children need to know
That an existence is a slippery thing

Like the color from the buttes
As it slowly drips off the sky
And back into the sand
Leaving speckles of white
Freckling the blackness
Swirled with little
Tizzles of light
As homage to the desert moon
Whose crying stars for
Coyotes
Howling in time
To the crickets metronomic harmonies  
Singing the desert back from its camouflage
Life bursting breath though
The earth cast shadows
Breathing heart beats across the land
That's just been
Brought back to living

And if I ever have children
I'll teach them
That this road will never end
At least not where we expect it to
Because god
Isn’t who
We make him to be
He
Doesn’t string us along a road
But he holds the world on a string



                                                       ­   The End.

The List:
carrot, eggplant, arbi,
capsicum, green peas -
press one for more options -
apples, new list apps
applesauce and ketchup
not Heinz but the cheaper one,
a new pressure cooker because the whistle doesn’t work
And with each tweak it tizzles out more,
theek nahi hai, yaar  
no matter how many times you take it in,
it’s just jugaad again,
a permanent temporary fix,
so we need a new one, stainless
steel and big, bara
to cook all of your dreams.
grand total rages against your wallet,
paper thin but it’s digital,
anyway,
your eyes glaze, blaze
as the bag boy, too tired, too hassled,
too underpaid squishes the eggs
beneath the cooker
the shells quake in your eardrums
the smell of something rotten
beneath all those discounts.