FUNNY THAT YOU SAY IF I EVER GO MISSING      

          you will look for me, listen to the oiled crunch 

of embittered stars to track my whereabouts,  

           won’t unhook my clothesline by the ixorabush 

blackened by monsoon’s noonday thumbing, 

           won’t sleep on the side of the bed from where 

I watch the shallow shadows of trees snuggle 

          and will perversely monogram my initials 

onto the hot strength of sand under the red river

          till the breaking arteries of time is a pinch— 

was it one of those evenly crouched nights,

         ones with no stomach for yearnings and rain

ones cured of the orderly films of nightlight  

         when we heard the snuffles of our grandmothers

scorching our woods yet their steps like mynas’  

         on buffalo back, looking for our grandfathers1—

it wasn’t the bobrenga but their rattling breaths  

         through the kanchans in the white-eye kopje

that crept and cracked and cut against our door

         and when we listened for their grief, their voices  

were denials, clear sobs but mostly love songs

          for men who at the crack of dawn rode gaurs,

ate singed mulberries, nattered with gibbons 

          and died young in each other’s sprig-like arms,

they now tug spring in their new moon feathers— 

         a night sky hollowed by the arithmetic of history, 

still we draped it like a koum kontong to sleep

         and, as cobwebs against winds, its binds relaxed 

I half-heard you say: I too will look for you.

1 this portion refers to the Farkranti dance performed by the Rabha community in Northeastern India to mourn the passing of people; bobrenga: a musical instrument used by the said Tibeto-Burmese ethnic group 

Sarmah

Abhijit Sarmah is a poet and researcher of Indigenous Literatures from the northeastern Indian state of Assam. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD at the University of Georgia, Athens GA where he is an Arts Lab Graduate Fellow and a Ruth Pack Scholar. His work has been published or forthcoming in a range of print and online journals, including Callaloo Journal, Poetry Magazine, The Margins, Lunch Ticket, and The Lincoln Review.  Sarmah was a finalist for the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships for two consecutive years (2023 and 2024) and has received nominations for the Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize.

John Tracy is a self-taught photographer who worked as a photojournalist for the New York Daily News for seven years before becoming an attorney. He has recently been published in F-Stop Magazine, Birmingham Arts Journal and Dipity. His work can be viewed at www.jtracy.com.