The Ofi Press Magazine

Poem by Sohini Basak (India/ UK)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 41

Poem selected by Georgina Mexía-Amador for the Ofi Press/ YPN collaboration competition

Image: "Discarded Pipes" by Michael Coghlan.

plot 

a mongoose evaluates the afternoon

backyard, its soil kiln dry sprouting

discarded pipes, batteries, an upturned

commode but under the guava tree, he digs

up the ghosts of flowers with his charcoal

feet, renames each weed each unloved root

with his nose even as his pampas grass tail

consoles the hibiscus birthless this winter,

then, hitting the boundary wall, he decides

to make a tunnel connecting this once garden

to the world of water buffaloes, cranes— no

movement escapes these agate eyes while dusk

falls the sky thickens to help the krait slink away

and here is when, if we blink, we lose the plot.