Four women exercise on Bandstand

The first runs, elbows cocked

weaving through spaces between lovers

past old friends who’ve stopped

half a promenade

to discuss an intricacy of lunch

the runner runs and ignores the world

(so deliberately that)

she’s far too aware.

But the second woman is oblivious

and swings from left to right

body splayed, abaya stiff and insensitive to breeze

her hands don’t reach her knees

she floats in a rhythm of her own invention

eyes on the sea,

which applauds in a crash of waves against rock.

Two friends in starkly clean sneakers

swing their hands up to their chests,

feet pumping ahead– salwar kameezed pistons

whose words jostle through huffs and puffs

as retorts, rejoinders and repartee

with a ‘tut-tut’ in tandem

for a runner who streaks past their halted words.

The fourth woman scopes her surroundings

for judgement (or secret admiration)

before she climbs onto a metal contraption

and swings giddily for twenty stolen seconds

hips here, dupatta there

before the worries of being noticed

remind her to join her lover (who has been watching)

but the sharp edge of a runner’s draft

slices through the seconds that separate them.