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The Eroding Iron of Memories Replenished

Shome Dasgupta

__________

               for Clementine

A sift through solemn eyes, the anger undoing,
A turn or twist of mosaic bark upon the banks of ridden rivers,

When twirling violet petals land, heavy and muddied,
When a pup becomes a striped stray kitten with ceaseless paws,

The mirage of sunsets over and over again flicker,
The puffed nostrils of a mad mad horse burning in twilight,

And the moon’s shade, shallow and simmering,
And the moon’s shade, inflamed in broken halos,

Surrounding sounds of distant thunder awakens, the clashing streams,
Surrounding the melodies of plate tectonics, the moving mass of dirt,

Where fiery harbors meet and explode,
Where the glittered beaks of the redbird’s song protrudes,

For the splintered wooden souls entwined about like ice,
For the forked rivers sprinkling with steam,

And the ant pile growing and growing,
And the ant pile humming like bees, synapses forever tunneled.

Down goes the green green light,
Down goes the rotten blossoms of the shielded magnolia,

In which the branches find their way toward the mouths of stalagmite teeth,
In which the cackling bubbles search for searing homes,

Search search search for the flooding light, a thousand deluges in one,
Search search search the hovered skies full of softened lava,

Upon the jagged meandering of the canyon’s edge,
Upon the sauntering of shadows, tinkering in a dance,

And find the rusted path to the past of swans and glass,
And find the calm calm waves, its tides washing the skulls,

And find the long un-grazed fields of bronzed weeds,
And the particles of colors combine to form the dome of splendid ashes

In between the cooling release of a palette of tongues,
In between the baby’s heels, enwrapping air and pollen,

There the simple touch of tips and eyes, curling and wandering, and wondering,
There the eroding iron of memories replenished

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Shome Dasgupta is the author of i am here And You Are Gone (Winner Of The 2010 OW Press Fiction Chapbook Contest), The Seagull And The Urn (HarperCollins India, 2013) which has been republished in the UK by Accent Press as The Sea Singer (2016), Anklet And Other Stories (Golden Antelope Press, 2017), Pretend I Am Someone You Like (University of West Alabama’s Livingston Press, 2018), and Mute (Tolsun Books, 2018). His stories and poems have appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Puerto Del Sol, New Orleans Review, New Delta Review, Necessary Fiction, Jellyfish Review, Milk Candy Review, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. His fiction and poetry have been anthologized in The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing (&Now Books, 2013), Best Small Fictions 2019 (forthcoming), and Poetic Voices Without Borders 2 (Gival Press, 2009). His work has been featured as a storySouth Million Writers Award Notable Story, nominated for The Best Of The Net, and longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50. In 2018, he took part in the Innovative Fiction panel, as a featured author, at the Louisiana Book Festival. He lives in Lafayette, LA and can be found at www.shomedome.com.

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