Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
Sean, the new department manager
spends all the petty cash
on window cleaners
for these huge panes
six floors up.
They all have their foibles
says Pinky, shucking a glove
with a smack. We’re in
the main ward, high and formal
as an Oxbridge hall;
a trolley turns a corner
somewhere deep and then,
as if the hospital
swings downwind
and hangs on its anchor,
calm rolls up the jinxy
stairwells to this floor, where
through the hand-rinsed glass
we watch a white van
climb out of the valley
to the new world. What’s
a word for how the light
this cold May afternoon
ruffles the blue pleated curtain
behind Mr. Mooney,
reaching for his tumbler
like a man underwater? I
have lumen biro’d on my hand
because the nurse who used it
scuttled off before I got to ask.
What’s a lumen, Pinky?
Just an opening, she says.