Dhaka Dust

Can’t occupy the same space at the same time unless, of course, you land in Dhaka, rickshaws five or six abreast. They are all here: studded metal backboards ablaze with red flowers, Heineken boxes, a Bangladeshi star with blue eyes, peacocks, pink fans of filigree. The drivers sweat and strain in the plaid lungis, and each face seems to say Allah takes and Allah gives. A woman breathes into her green shawl against the dust on the road’s median. A man with a plaid scarf (surplus from The Gap) slaps the rump of a passing gray car as though it’s a horse or a dog. You are there, too, your maroon sleeves begin to stick despite your deodorant. Under your orna, a laminated map and digital camera cradled in your lap. One strand of silver wiry by your ear. Bits of children’s songs snag in your windpipe. Other words surface: sweatshop and abject poverty, and you let them. They mix with the low rumbling that began on the plane,ms and bs tumbling, amplified in the streets: the rickshaw bells’ light metal, the nasal peal of horns. On this continent, the ocean’s giant tongue has swept away miles of coastline, and bodies flood the water. Dust sifts into your lungs and sinks—feline, black, to remain long after you leave.