January 2023
In this issue
Contents
Second Sleep
My second sleep, where red, white and blue are burning, the ashes gleaning and glinting as they die. I wake to the carmine rays of dawn and fall asleep to the sound of fireworks outside. I cradle the ivory dove in its mourning, whispering, “Am I alive? Am I alive?”
My Mother
My mother rationed it like electricity, food enemies had to be beaten, bombs avoided fires put out Love would be shown in a more practical way through duty, service.
Homeshores
The bleached armory of the sea Lay ever-washing on the shore In casques and blades and bulwarks. In your hand a gray medallion crumbles To powder And is claimed with haste By the wind
Happy Birthday, Spider Plant
Spider plant is the wrong name for my immortal perennial. In all her newness, she remains the same tuberous roots that I touched with tiny fingers, eyes illiterate, but full of love.
Of Blue Skin and Invisible Suns
They’ll be tests, machines that spin famished tubes with eyes like steam engines hanging in space, and no matter how deeply infrared you are, no matter how many mean dogs you put out front
Our Many Longings – Contemporary Short Fiction from Bangladesh: Edited by Sohana Manzoor
Sucharita Dutta-Asane reviews a collection of contemporary short fiction from Bangladesh edited by Sohana Manzoor.
Temple Lamp: Verses on Banaras by Mirza Ghalib
Sekhar Banerjee reviews Mirza Ghalib’s poems on Banaras
The Closet
I was fond of that little place. There were costume-like clothes dangling above my head, willowy branches of a protective forest, and the walls formed an impenetrable edifice, bumpy and cold like Rapunzel’s tower. The clothes smelled of starch and my mother’s youth.
Piece of Petrified Son
I grinned at her and her enviable energy, soaking in her palpable brightness. She practically hopped around the kitchen, half humming a half-familiar tune, as she noticed every detail most people seemed to miss. There was no use in trying to stop this on my own.
The Curator
The Body. My body. My body thus became insignificant, irrelevant even. I owned it, but I didn’t own it. I felt it, but I didn’t feel it. But I felt the times it was battered, abused, spited, pinched, pushed around, shut down.