White

A bright morning. Broken boats, torn sails, & morasses hiding the green dampness of earth. The river carrying the sky, the sky blinded with its own illusion to float along the river. Snow geese testing the cold water as they waddle slowly into it. Birds think of songs between the insects’ weeping. He is there, but he is not there. Nowhere. She is there & wishes she was here, there. Anywhere? Nowhere? Naked branches sway, obeying the book of breeze. Yet cotton to bloom, leaves to open their green eyes before they turn red in fall. What are these gales of equinox, dark thoughts, dark eyes, anvil desires, masks of merry-go-round? Words unchain themselves & jumbled up in a nonsense state of mind. Knife that sleeps, dream that writhes…burning pupae yet eyes full of larvae waiting for their metamorphosis…water rustles, a hungry shadow refuses to be called fugitive in the cocooning mind. A laughter breaks & falls into pieces mirroring the bright sky, the void of blue. You there? No, no, not there, here, here-now. The bridge shines having to shine on nothing new but for the lonely fogs. Whistling steamer, music fades away, footsteps choke the words as their banks bathe in the sun. What’s there to write? Write me a moon. No, I can’t, every time I try it turns out to be a zero that does not brim over. Then write me a bull if blood is the name of the endeared passion. The morning moves without retreating its brightness. Noon comes as the white page turns whiter.

Debasis Mukhopadhyay grew up in Calcutta, India, and now lives in Montreal, Canada. He has a PhD in literary studies from Université Laval and extensive experience in language teaching and translation. He writes poetry in both Bengali & English. His debut collection of poetry in Bengali was published in 2005. Debasis’s recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Snapping Twig, Silver Birch Press, Of/with, and elsewhere.