Plantain leaves, steaming yellow
rice, katta sambol, seer fish,
passion fruit, the island’s culinary
pleasures I think of first, batting
then for a day, stopping for lunch
and tea, but this strain of poetry
has been sidelined, a war
won and lost, rewriting of history,
yet the latter may not be
necessary, building of
monuments to the bullet
near the sea, or the various
stupas popping up by kovils,
or replacing them quietly.
The waters of the Bay
of Bengal are rising steadily.