Ishita Basu Mallik reads Englit at Jadavpur University. She also does other things.
—
Untitled
I have gone from your house
but do not miss me: I have hung
my hands from your ceiling.
Do not fear the nights that cover you
like the fresh pelts of unknown animals
Slip them on, those meat-gloves,
and commune with ancient heroes.
Or leave them as they are
to sway and lull above your sleepless head,
a tasteful mobile.
If you are hungry, feel free
to cut them down and cram their soft
nourishing fingers in your mouth
Season the palms and garnish the knuckles
with well-remembered motions.
—
“The black swine of trespass”
, to paraphrase. O luckless wind,
harbinger of loan-pushers and pigeons,
an astronaut swells in my pia mater,
walks cross-culturally across the water
I grow up to crunch gravel and numbers
(perambulate the vacant garden, the gas giant,
toe lines in the quicksand
arm-wrestle the tusked spoon, geld the lily-livered).
Which was only the third option. The first
was to photograph people
in varying states of naked authenticity
or was it authentic nakedness? (flesh
frissons, physics the gut can polish, pad/crash
dirigible)
The subsequent revelation
loops, anonymous with strings,
as wedding guests vivisect divorce and jalfrezi.
“Dismantle the sun”. It’s four a.m., the keys
depress.
—