Cleaner of dawn

She doesn't need an alarm

For the last hour of the night.

She listens to the light snore

Of a city fast asleep:

A drop of drool from a dozing darwan

        A thief mid climb behind,

The deadline dash of late night learners

        Now enrolled in the grind.

A canine cry for far off loss

        Heart-piercing yet tender,

Asphalt hum to the heavy haulers

Finally free to enter.

Tap tap go the remote romantics

        Sleepless in shut-off rooms,

Flip flap runs the nocturn drunkard

        From a wrong turn through the plumes.

Her weapon of a broom in hand

She strides, the cleaner of dawn.

She rolls her cart, two creaks in silence,

        In search of last day's rot:

They're littered by the sidewalk

        In the hollow built for flood,

They're remains of a city bustling,

Echoes of a day passed.

They are the textbook excerpts

        To feed jhalmuri and peanuts.

They're the see-through plastic wrappers,

        A shared kulfi between it.

They're the high rise concrete flakes

        Of a city under construction.

They're the false fog, dust in disguise

        Hiding their pale complexion.

They piled up here, under footsteps and tire marks

        These corpses, clumped together,

Breathless in death, heedless of thought

They lie in wait for her.

She shakes her head to lessons unlearnt

To find them here once again.

She passes by their sorry forms

To pass on their tales

To no one:

This one's a poet, by the look of its frown

        Etched by realities that don't rhyme.

That one's a writer, that gap by its head

        Spilling stories of new divine.

Here lies the scholar, with a pen stabbed through,

        Ink that never ran to impress.

There rests the humorist, tooth pulled from its grin,

        Eyes scratched up as a jest.

The rebel and the leader sleep clasping their hands

        Their voices a whisper to the ghosts;

Their heart aches to reach their lips,

The pathway seized,

        Long gone to friends and foe.

With one sweep of her trusted broom,

        With one sigh that lingered,

She turned them to dust, grey stars in the night

Pushed by an early gust

No witness in sight.

She doesn't need an alarm

        For the first hour of the day.

She listens to the tight stretch

        Of a city stirring awake:

Of jogging boots fleeing sickness,

Of a-chirping a-dancing in the air,

Of heckler howls for the freshly farmed,

        In rhythm to calls for prayer.

Through the sizzle of fried egg, on a drizzle of oil,

        She leaves her post determined.

She let forget all that she cleaned

        All behind the crimson curtain.

"Cleaner of dawn" was originally recited at SHOUTxDS Slam Poetry Nights that took place earlier this year at Dhaka Lit Fest.

Fatiul Huq Sujoy is a researcher and fiction writer. Reach him at [email protected].