
DAILY PHOTO: Mural in Bangalore
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City market sprawls
Under covered roofs --
Blocks and blocks
With no outside, and yet
Not really inside either.
Miles of food:
Raw, cooked, and
-- Sometimes -- living,
Squirming in buckets
Or trying to flip to freedom.
In the witching hour,
With blue tarps up
And food stowed
And only streetlamps lit,
A drunk stumbles through,
Crushing an overripe
Peach underfoot.



In my youth, "Honk Kong"
Came after "Made in __"
As often as did any
Set of letters.
I can't remember the last time
I saw that declaration.
I do hear references to the
Hong Kong Markets opening.
They tore down the
Kowloon Walled City ---
A chock a block, chunky
Architectural cancer growth
Where people lived squeezed
More than a million to the
Square kilometer.
But still there are places where people
Are packed and packed --
While densely stacked --
In high-rise Building-Cities.
(If a City-State is a place in which
City and Nation are identical,
A Building-City is where a
Building contains all the
Functions of a city.)
One could live without leaving
If one didn't love sunshine.
But people do love sunshine.
And mountains and beaches,
Which Hong Kong also --
Against all reason --
Has in abundance.