A pre-walk ritual of milky Malabar tea
at the red-brick building curving into
memories, with cats streaking between
feet, seats
I order tea
Wait behind two animated boys
talking in Hindi
Hand over the crisp receipt
which is stabbed on to a spike
joining the stack of impaled bills
going slack
from the wafting fragrant steam
Carol D’Souza is a tea drinker and walker. A collation of her work can be found at linktr.ee/cblaizd.
Article 19 