bongaigaon
by Priyam Goswami Choudhury
I have seen your houses, darling
she said somewhere in Gerichstraße –
the caked muddy houses
the ponds
and the fish.
You cannot be from there
and still be here.
Late at night, in Kreuzberg
shame comes; smelling
of the fish, the pond
lovingly called pookhuri;
of the women squatting
naked in the tea gardens.
Tipsy, mumbling about my
Bongaigaon well past midnight,
I trace that shame close to my skin;
caressing it here and there
here and there.
Priyam Goswami Choudhury is an Assamese poet who lives in Berlin. Her work was shortlisted for the Srinivas Rayaprol Prize for Poetry in 2016 and has appeared in two anthologies of Indian poetry and journals like Vayavya, FU Review, The Sunflower Collective and Papyrus.
Image credit: © 2016 | David Mees