Urban throat

Anirban Acharya

The central city poems, slightly
curved at their edges, imagine
how the cattle keep moaning
sculpted in the habitual sun.

Trees vibrate, the sneaky subway
trains thread the streets together.
Filmed in slow motion, though,
everything stands still, like that

lone halogen necklace holding
hands. Mistrust in their nuanced
darkness like phlegm clogging our
acute, urban throats. All along our

floors, carpets are strained through
a neon breeze. After the prolonged
gaze of weeks, that thirst for river
water, a cloud shop brings serendipity.

The man who gets periodically mad
during festival time, is waving. Winds,
be calm, he shouts, cleanse our pain before
we give in to the storm. The rain is also

our patent alibi for running back to our roof-
top room, as if love must be approaching the
tip of my tongue. The thunders would be
pulling triggers before they scream.

Prostitutes have finished buttoning up their
males, parks are chatting each other up, love
is sweating sweetly in a two forty bus. I’m
getting wet in all three minds. I’m getting

wet from having to decide whether or not
to cross the streets. We are getting wet from
nothing specific that can reinstate our lives.
The rains turning sour on all four sides.

Anirban Acharya is concerned with the life of objects. His work has been published in Art and Poetry, The Statesman, and various other literary journals/ little magazines of Calcutta. He writes in English and Bengali. Recently his work has appeared and is forthcoming in journals such as Arch, Knock, and Perigee Art. He has a Masters from Syracuse University, and presently pursuing a doctoral degree in Politics. He is married to Jessica Posner who indulges in his ideosyncracies, as he does hers.