Jesus on a Train from Mumbai
by Name
I was dragged from the train by English tourists as the tall man
from Tamil Nadu called “coffee coffee” in his soft, sad voice.
They had been to too many temples, mistaken the pigeon-feeding ritual
for a message from god. All they wanted was for me to sing songs
altered by death but when I opened my mouth I vomited water hyacinth—
they beat me with metal rods from London buses, whilst the school boy bird
whistled outside. Women wrapped in blankets came to view me,
carrying boulders on their heads to mend the roads. When they judged me
bloody enough, we went for chai at a shack by the roadside,
a statue of St. George in a glass case spoke. There was mist and no view.
In damp fields, men sold bags of candyfloss to over-dressed newly-weds,
heaps of carrots sickening as goldfish. Children followed us like skinny dogs
their ribs rotten as railway tracks. In the back yard of his brother’s house
a man invited us into his concrete hut, model trains mounted on the walls
like something shot. His brain was smaller than a mouse’s.
He showed us a dead kingfisher the size of a rat, its enormous
beak open, about to speak, asked me to bless it.
I could not. I had shared a bed with my mother, under the same
mosquito net, had watched my father miraculously pleasure
thirteen women with his thirteen hands.
Suzanne Batty’s first collection of poems The Barking Thing was published in 2007 and she completing a second collection. A short story author, Suzanne also writes for theatre and has taught Creative Writing for 15 years. She is interested in working with people experiencing or recovering from mental distress. Her most recent collaborative project has been with an avant-garde musician, arranging one of Suzanne’s poems for three soprano voices. Suzanne lives in Manchester, UK.