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Leaving, he looks out of the window,
skirting the edge of the silver wing:
a tear widens in the quilt of clouds,
through which he sees (or thinks he can)

miles below, traffic lights blinking
their green and amber arrows
as rain smears the windscreens of cars
and soldiers jump down from dented tanks.

He clutches his passport. There's no room
for back numbers in his baggage.
The clouds stitch back the widening tear
but he gropes for a towel,

feeling the cabin temperature rise
as though, miles below,
the city of his birth were burning.
Ranjit Hoskote, “Emigrant.” Vanishing Acts: New and Selected Poems, 1985-2005, Penguin Books India, 2006, p. 166.
Published with permission from Penguin Random House India.

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