Of Shadows and Blebs
November, the slow month, crowds
the morning streets like a herd of brown ponies
looking for a patch of green
Ferries, laden with mint and cauliflowers, sprout
on the Hooghly River
like blebs
on its soft skin
Calcutta, full of morning florists, wakes up late
yawning
around the Howrah Bridge
Municipal supervisors wander the streets
of north Calcutta, Gothic,
to search out the lost blackhole lids
under a November sun, stable yet weak,
and report back
to the head office
A bevy of postmen groggily roam the blind alleys
to deliver
original sorrows
back to their senders still in sleep
Autumn’s mellow sunbeam on my left arm
fidgets
like an old Fahrenheit thermometer mark
to measure
the futility of tracing
my lost shadow in the empty street
Sekhar Banerjee is a Pushcart Award and Best of the Net nominated poet. The Fern-gatherers’ Association is his latest collection of poems. He has been published in Stand, Indian Literature, Ink Sweat and Tears and elsewhere. He lives in Kolkata, India.