Poetry - Moushumi Chakrabarty, Darkhorse Press New Poets
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MEDITATION

Morning -
And all of you have gone.
Time, a golden snake
Unwinds from a magic storybook
It’s lazy, glittering scales
Drip one by one
Crystallizing
Diamondizing.
That boat ride with you
and how we had laughed
Circling madly on the sunlit lake!
Friend’s voices, a child’s high question
Above the drone of a small plane.
Now the skies swing by
Clouds collide
As I surge towards a deep stillness.

START OF DAY

It’s a quarter to six
And already
You push back the quilt
Swinging your legs beside the bed.
A yawn creases your stubbled face
A shiver touches you momentarily
But you sigh and walk away
Not pausing to look at the pale window.
In a minute I hear the shower
An angry awakening sea of heat
And feel the apple-scented foam
Slide over your skin with my hands,
The strawberry loofah with the teddy bear
Dangling from the corner hook
Will bring a reluctant smile to your lips,
As will the memory of something I said last evening.
You will dress in a shirt I ironed yesterday
And glide downstairs to the kitchen noiselessly
And, while pouring out the milk, knit your brows
At the president’s statements
Printed on the newspaper’s face.
A quick bound up the stairs and
You bend to kiss me goodbye.
I lie on your pillow when you’re gone
.

RENDEZVOUS

when summer dusk colors the lips
of the hollow grass ringed pool
fireflies laugh wantonly
at the naked swimming moon,

silver becomes the shade of desire
dyeing the shore's long wet hair
a hush, only the cicadas breathe
among the trembling tamarinds:

then aloud floats the moan of conch shell
as lover-like the scented wind mounts.