traffic in the tropics

If I were a poet I would write about the roads in Malaysia,

Paradise of lane-changers, Graveyard of pedestrians.

I would write of ubiquitous U turns

numberless speed bumps

the lack of directional signals;

of merciless merging and lurching and inserting.

I would write of lane-sharing scooters whose drivers wear their jackets backward

of belching, barreling trucks with no cab doors

with molded plastic chairs where a driver's seat
used to be,

Of teksis that drive with equal abandon on either side of the road .

I would write of Double Parking and Double Passing

of Legendary Jams.

I would speak of interposition, interjacence, intercurrence,

intervenience, interlocation, and interjection.

I would write about interpolation, interlineation, interspersion,

intercalation, interpenetration, permeation

and infiltration.

Of intervention, interference, obtrusion, insinuation, insertion,

of intruders and interlopers in my lane.

Of drivers who come between, get between, intervene,

slide in, wedge in, edge in, jam in,

worm in, foist in, run in, plow in, work in.

How they interpose, interject, interpolate, and interline,

interleave, intersperse, and interweave;

sandwich in, fit in, squeeze in;

dovetail, splice, mortise,insinuate,

infiltrate, ingrain, interfere.

How they thrust a

nose

in;

intrude, obtrude and introduce

the thin end of the wedge.

I would muse upon

how one can only hope to survive between, betwixt, among, amidst;

in the thick of, betwixt and between,

sandwich-wise

or

parenthetically.

I would write of Forcible Ingress, of Insertion,

Implantation, Introduction and Insinuation.

Of drivers who dovetail, obtrude, thrust in, stick in,

ram in, stuff in, tuck in, press, in,

drive in, pop in, or whip in.

But since I am no poet,

but only a fan of the thesaurus,

I will not write of the roads

in Malaysia.