Weed and wine (HuMONEYING my work- a series on stories i can't tell at work

that morning cup of coffee you see drip down from the vending machine
you grab it careless when you walk in grumpily on a tuesday afternoon
on a way to a press conference at the hilton

that will have 14 cheesecakes for dessert that the journos might not even notice
waiting for soundbytes

from the man
now surrounded by a mob of reporters
with boom mikes

From the graying man who
‘s casual tuesday dinner with his annorexic fuckbuddy(my age) bottle of wine costs half my salary

that morning cup of coffee is blackened by the
black leathery hands of a lower caste man
Who picked the weeds
on the pesticide rich soil
on which the coffee grew

Blackened by the pesticide
That slowly coursed in through his veins


To die
because the 200 Rupees
He earned for picking weeds
in the pesticide Rich soil
with his leathery black
67 year old hands

didn’t pay for his
treatment

and the nearest shiny glass walled hospital
needed registration
Before he was warded to the ward
so he went straight
and Free to the morgue


(inspired by a coffee plantation worker I met in Coorg when travelling on work)