A Poem by Tuhin Bhowal

Against Friendship

Lately, the lack of it. Two representatives from a foundation arrive like rain
and ask for money. I donate towards the right to sanitation of girls.
Even though always unsure of prepositions. Offer water to both.
Another roach drops dead. Soon rails of ants will come and go
and ten years would’ve passed with nothing happening.
I lost you because I wanted you. Now, I want to lose you.
The cursor blipping at the end of sentences as if a mouth learning
to swallow. People winning medals, prizes. Poems winning contests.
I busy myself scheduling grief. To that, I raise a whiskey. Night falls neat.
I sit in a room naked gorging mangoes, alone and quiet, as men should
according to Pascal. Nothing shimmers, not quite yet. I don’t become god
just like that. My belly doesn’t turn to stone just like that. In loneliness,
everything turns to fat but the heart: The leanest red meat in the world.
I wanted to perfect all my enemies before you.
Four hours past midnight when a father indulges in the idea of killing himself
exactly in the shape of his son’s noose, I ideate, Let us go to sleep.
Wouldn’t it be glorious, he goes on, before smiling at the last cigarette
stubbed into another dawn. Staying away is staying kind, staying away is loving.
The first man I’ve known who translates for a living smiles at death.
The mind preys on this. Some birds wake up at one in the morning
to chirp. Not out of hunger but desire. The mind fixates on this.
Lately, the excess of salt. Lately, remembering anything in lieu of
forgetting everything else. Memory as effect then cause.
I write in marginalia but dream somewhere in the middle
of a long wintry ream. I don’t even see you.

Recipient of the Deepankar Khiwani Memorial Prize 2022, Tuhin Bhowal’s poems and translations appear or are forthcoming in Poetry at Sangam, Oxford Anthology of Translation 2022, adda, Poetry City USA, nether, Parentheses Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal, Ovenbird Poetry, and elsewhere. Tuhin lives alone in Bangalore, India @tuhintranslates.