pen to paper

a found poem

Not long
after the women descend[ed]
on this swarming city
they would find him

at his stall
near the post office

letter writer for the unlettered

Hungry, battered, lonely
needing someone to convert
their spoken words into
letters
to mail back home

ferry[ing] false reassurances

[of] steady jobs as shopkeepers
and Bollywood stagehands
nothing of the brothels, beatings, rapes
rupees agonizingly acquired

Many called Mr. Sawant “brother”
and tied a string on his wrist each year
in the Hindu tradition

Sometimes, suspicious parents
boarded a train to Mumbai
and turned up at [the] stall
which a daughter had listed
as her address

Mr. Sawant greeted them
kindly
but disclosed nothing



Found in The Ink Fades on a Profession as India Modernizes in this morning's New York Times.

Video: Central do Brasil trailer. A 1998 movie about another letter writer.