Ripe stench by the road alerts me:
It’s rambutan time of year.
It’s late and the roads are as near
to deserted as ever they’ll be.
We don’t slow as we pass by them,
these mountains of spikey red fruit
and the salesmen hunched over their loot
with a small gas fire to guard them.
I don’t want to eat their white flesh
but to know they’re there tonight,
tomorrow and all July’s nights
feeds me. I cannot rest.
(Colombo, July 2008)
