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bongaigaon

by Priyam Goswami Choudhury

Drunken Boat | Image credit: © 2017 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.

 


Author-image-Priyam-Goswami-ChoudhuryPriyam 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