After New Delhi

After New Delhi's

fire-bright sky

fire-dry air

fume-filled breaths

hotel corridors endless

with uniformed "sir"-ers

endlessly polite

eternally smiling

as conference-goers' guts

turned anguish, faces

pale, paler, palest,

but their minds and bodies conferencing on,

after the 4 a.m. airport

dodging mosquitoes' malaria-laden lips,

an endless flight to Europe,

seven hours between planes,

diet limited, bread, rice, sodas, tea

by a gut at war,

then more airplane, waiting for baggage,

and a taxi of 60 miles,

home to days of running guts, gray skies throwing shiver-water

when I needed outside,

Judy voiceless with days of 'flu,

the taxes unfinished,

the guts rumbling deep.

The Web Projects of Sondra Ball and Mario Cavallini