Food stalls align the street, the smell
wafting around old ladies collecting tin cans
from abandoned seats. Coca cola, fanta, other brands
almost in hiding, like lovers in a shady alley, always in pairs.
The smell is rare here, around Kuala Lumpur,
a concoction of dirty sewer water and re-used oil,
hardly hygienic ... but oh so nostalgic.
In the restaurants, you will always find geckos
sticking to the ceiling, as if threatening to skydive
into your noodle soup. But this is home,
the pineapple-like palmtrees and calloused hands,
this is what it feels like to invest your sweat
into a broken place that remains majestic
with all its roaches filling up the cracked pavements.
