Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
and then I couldn’t really tell— Doctor, arms crossed
like the body of Christ transposed, refusing to take out
my tonsils
as recent studies had pointed to the risk of long
term morbidities. Oh these complications— I’ve long
admired how a solution to a problem
in time becomes a new problem
and keeps animals engrossed. That is how jobs are created.
That is also how love whetted and fired
into eclaired mouths reincarnates
on the lashes of a newborn’s eyes dilating to comprehend light
for the first time, slowly submerging in the promise
of abundant years, then moving on
in tiny chariots of blood, the path wild and tendon-free
for now. So who owns the mess that comes after?
I know my answer, but I hope your truth
is not too far from mine. If it is, where do I start
to relearn?
Did you realize we were more or less regular beasts
when at the airport, tears trickled down both our cheeks?
Even though for different reasons. The ticket confirmed: you got
the day right but the month wrong.
And the next morning after a volley
of outbursts, we did what animals do after a discharge
of vitriol.
I left the house. You left.
It’s all so disturbing, then all of a sudden, pristine.
And the flux between both, a type of pudding—
heat of annoying suns, a stye in the eye crying
out for relief of warm wetted cloth— there you go, don’t forget
to account for these gummy and swollen pleasures. Wishes
mostly don’t come true but desires,
by virtue of their tensile nature, might.
A bedroom in a foreign land reminds you of the smell
of your childhood house, the impressive olfactory shrinking miles
across continents, the trail made of the accumulated currency
of your evolution.
Now if you look back closely at the scene in the drawing room you’ll see
the boy under the table is reading an atlas and out the window, flames rise
in mysterious colors he hasn’t seen before.
The arc of the child’s heart
and the border of his country on the map—
both curls are turning malleable.