Shome Dasgupta

That’s them opossums down there

—that’s them right there, pointing

like there was someone sitting next 

to him. There was no one—he talks,

a bucket of pecans: bright and yellow,

shining its transparency under a sun.

That’s them opossums down there

—they know the earth like they 

created the map for all geographies. 

Squinted eyes—hard skin and rough, 

he pushes a potato in his mouth. 

Chew: blistered lip—fingertips 

with no nails, a straw hat full of twilit 

echoes. Echoes singing the beams 

stemmed from sky’s mouth—a mouth. 

Down there: that’s them opossums 

huddling around a patch of cabbage, 

making dinner for a home—recognizing 

a new visitor to enter soon, and just up 

there, a man with no eyes buries himself 

to sleep, as if he was never awake or 

awoken or there—that’s the bayou.

Shome Dasgupta is the author of The Seagull And The Urn (HarperCollins India), and most recently, the novels The Muu-Antiques (Malarkey Books) and Tentacles Numbing (Thirty West), a prose collection, Histories Of Memories (Belle Point Press), and a poetry collection, Iron Oxide (Assure Press). His writing has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, New Orleans Review, Jabberwock Review, American Book Review, Arkansas Review, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the series editor of The Wigleaf Top 50. He lives in Lafayette, LA and can be found at www.shomedome.com and @laughingyeti.