Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
When my scalpeled flesh opens its doors to light,
I see how you struggle to find enough
bandages, gauze, any form of medicine
that might keep memory from escaping
the human architecture I’ve lived in
during these few years I’ve called my life.
I am grateful for your care, the gentle way
your hands move in tandem with your eyes
when there’s nothing left to be done.
But it’s time now. The decades will pour from me
the way water pours from the old mountain.
Whole cities will emerge as islands into the sea,
fully formed, their streets the clear blueprint
of a dream explored by those walking the sidewalks,
or waiting in the stalled lanes of traffic, or making love
in the buildings that house them up high.
Soon enough, the palace of memory crumbles
to stone. We stand among the ruins afterward,
there in the graveyard of all that once was,
all the time we had, all the world thrumming
within us, and all the world lost, remembering
the things we’d seen and done, saying
to ourselves as much as to one another—
earth. sky. wind. rain.
laughter. wonder. sorrow. flight.
← Brian Turner