Times three
For the last time tonight,
the neighbourhood falls
into a fitful sleep,
having been woken,
first by fighting dogs
coming intensely alive
when the street’s last lights
no more dim the moonshine
on their slack bodies,
then by cabs returning
back to their lonely homes
tired evening shift workers
with their packed food boxes
and chalk white headphones;
Somewhere close, a shrill alarm
awakens an irritated father,
groping blindly, he turns
to switch it off, yet can’t help
robotically dragging himself
across to his daughter’s room,
to rudely break into her dream
as a demon from Dholakpur
marching her to the toilet,
for the first time tonight.