Song by Siddhartha Bose

I have tied—firmly—my girl to
Stumps of iron, with
Rope of stone.

I keep her at home, feeding
Chewed bits—massacres—of
Lamb gut,
Fox eyes,
Duck fat.

My last lover
Belched me songs of fidelity.
We raised the child of our gut in a
Fog of streets—rainy days, garter belts, cigarette smoke,
Cholera.

The mother left me for my brother,
Eventually.
I went on to eat our produce, our lilac from dead loins,
Impeccably.
With knife and fork.

Now, I am beyond guilt.

I have taken
Skull of dream,
Gut of sleep,
Hide of fear.

Fashioned a lyre whose strings
Stink.

I take—when I’m ready to sing—my
Toy to a Stepney bar, where they serve me absinthe
Green as my liver.

A one-eyed jack with
Needles in his lip
Schools me in women:

“Know the man you are—
Lover of bird or flock, one or many…
You young and me old and
Blind…
For you, they lay a carpet of threaded time…”

And marriage?

“Five times—
Me grave splayed out, me heart spiked, me brain
Spun like vine!
Not one cried… ”

Five times! And your last wife?

“Killed her.”

Siddhartha Bose was born in 1979, raised in Bombay and Calcutta, and lived for seven years in the United States. A trained actor and filmmaker, his poetry has appeared in The Wolf, Tears in the Fence, Fulcrum, Eclectica and Alhamra Literary Review, and is anthologized in Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century (Bloodaxe, 2009). He currently lives in London and is completing a PhD on the Grotesque at Queen Mary, University of London.