In a precinct of liver stone, high

on its dais, the Taj seems bloc hail.

We came to Agra over honking roads

being built under us, past baby wheat

and undoomed beasts and walking people.

Lorries shouldered white marble loads.

Glamour of ads demeaned street life

in the city; many buildings were

held aloft with liverwurst mortar.

I have not left the Taj Mahal.

Camels were lozenge-clipped like rug pile

and workhorses had kept their stallionhood

even in town, around the Taj wall.

Anglos deny theirs all Bollywood.

On Indian streets, tourists must still

say too much no, and be diminished.

Pedlars speak of it to their lit thumbs.

I have not left the Taj Mahal.

Poor men, though, in Raj-time uniforms:

I’d felt that lure too, and understood.

In Delhi, we craned up at a sky-high

sandstone broom cinched with balustrades.