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My neighbor who hardly talks to me

She said “goodnight!” hopping on steps
that led to the afternoon coloured skies.
Her mother tugged at her red hood
“Beta, at night it is goodnight.”
Her sister reaches up my iron door
Slides the hasp. Almost locks me inside the house.
For a minute I keep pushing the house.
The house is making me understand a language, I think.

The girl walks in oversized slippers
He mother laughs when she sees
missing chappals. When someone rings
a bell here, her footsteps are the first
we anticipate. When her father says,
“Go run and get Daddy’s jacket!”
She scurries and tells her mother,
“Daddy wants chocolate!!”
On Sundays, she and her sister
sit cross legged on Activa.
And the sound of car alarms going off at their touch
are common enough. In between, they
charmingly match sirens with ‘Chal Gaadi!!!’.

For all the varied kinds of distance,
I want to be this close to my home.
And since doors do open —
That one yawned too.
As they forgot to fit
the hasp on loop
and go.

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