The Dreaming Machine is grateful to Paulami Sengupta for introducing us to this vibrant poet. The cover image is Eva Bovenzi’s painting, Scholar’s Stone, 2020.
Detangling wool
On empty afternoons
I detangle wool.
The stubborn knots
of half-formed thoughts
that untangle gently
into patient fingers.
Or the unintentional plaits
of leftover dreams
that calmly open up
into reality.
Unsaid words
half purled
like unfinished
baby blankets
with a glimmer of warmth
knitted
like roots
that refuse to undo.
Unspooled
into the deep pools
of lazy afternoons.
Memories of a south Indian village
The morning rises
with the smoke of burning firewood,
charcoal smells metallic
in the heated iron.
The sweet smell of grass
laced with goat droppings,
the homeliness of cow dung
comforting.
Afternoon, the smell of rice water
through the cracked walls and wood
smells like
an ancient grandmother.
Chemotherapy – I
The body
Prone like desert
Breaking like sand
In a storm
Desire
Grows like cactus
In a distance
Life moves
Like a desert beetle
An inch at a time
Never to reach
The end of the line
And somewhere
Perhaps a lizard
Like a ghost
Swift and sudden
Buried in the sand
Chemotherapy – II
The chemo flowed like
A river
Through the body
Toxic, impure, sick
Eroding the organs
Killing the good
And the bad
And yet she emerged
Pure and strong
Like a dip in the Ganges.
The ultrasound
It went in deep down
Like an earnest scuba diver
Wading through the mucus.
To find the uterus
Like a seabed
Littered with the detritus of youth
the debris of the womanhood
Covered in the moss
Of blood, semen, salt.
A lifetime of desire and disgust
Coagulated in clots
Unmoving like thoughts
Pieces of heart
Broken like a toy
On a warm summer day
And unrequited love
Like unopened gifts
Soaked in the rain
Rebellion
Like a crumbling fishbone
And disease
Like algae
Elsa Mathews has worked as a journalist. She holds a Master’s in Media, Communication, and Cultural Studies from Université Stendhal, Grenoble in France and University of Aarhus, Denmark. She has worked in diverse communication roles in international organizations. She is currently a freelance writer and a French language teacher. She is also the translator of Chroniques Indiennes: Marguerite de Bure, Feuilleton Epistolaire d’une Française à Bombay 1902-1904\ Indian Chronicles: Marguerite de Bure, Letters from a French Woman in Bombay 1902-1904 (Sanbun Publishers, 2020) into English.
