A bee walks its private lane across a clover dark with rain, in Bloomsbury
Memories of sparrows and golden deer wriggle off daylight, in Bloomsbury
Umbrellas tilt in a slow, tactical dance; their black crowns unlettered in meteorology
An awning folds its wet creases like a hand sheltering a snail, in Bloomsbury
A paper cup hovers with the dignity of a tiny ark; the amber windows enlighten
Tandems hanging about like patient ogres on a balcony’s banisters, in Bloomsbury
A stair-light flickers like a flautist’s final note; trash bins tumble like small meteors,
A rainbow of oil seepages becomes the slow law of nameless forms, in Bloomsbury
Shallow confidences and damp posters become tiny, sequestered, makeshift rafts
Smudged chalkboard menus and guava flesh loosen their scruples, in Bloomsbury
Memories of rain-beads on hibiscus—like a rosary to track unremarkable chants—
A red telephone box endures like an oath against forgetting, in Bloomsbury
The fog distorts the cathedral’s nose; a new cartography unrolls in triturated archives
Where sages once bickered on a dike’s name, flesh yields to the serpent, in Bloomsbury
The dead return as birds and poetry, feeding on trees and clouds and faded jingles
And margins initialed as hesitant names, confronting no Empire, in Bloomsbury
The rusted veins of wretched old decisions grate like an undiagnosed iron deficiency
The wrinkled saucer rings cold as sugar crystals lace the organ’s brim, in Bloomsbury
Qasim, be mindful of what expressions you use, while bargaining for fares
Freud is at large with glosses of the unconscious, while his minstrels rove in Bloomsbury
Arup K. Chatterjee 