Poetry: Jharna Choudhury

Jharna Choudhury
Thoughts are no sweet milk.

 

The other day 

I went walking and stuffed three pebbles in my pocket 

and it turns out they were two,

the third one was air.

 

Another day I do not know

how I ended up with the wrong pin number in an envelope,

rang wrong phone numbers, missed my room number,

lost my car number and I assumed I am not good with numbers 

or wrong was too wrong for me; 

but then when

somebody asked me my address 

I remembered a road and a house 

and that's it,

that’s all I have for today, close the curtains I said.

 

Next day, somebody said hi in a cafe,

late afternoon,

that somebody offered me coffee, 

hot cold yellow black brown milk,

I said “just coffeee”.

I did not mean an extra e. 

“Hi, your name?”

I said Mi-li and left.

 

Outside a house, by the road,

a door opened to a bell.

A lady rushed to me, saying

“Darling Ju”, and hugged me so hard

that my mind whirled back thinking

there was no pebble, but a bird,

its bones crushed in my net pocket;

 

and I didn't know what to do with its tongue

curled out to me like a pointy feeling,

 

but to emboss in words.

***

 

Jharna Choudhury is an embroidery artist and storyteller from Guwahati, Assam, India. Her creative writings have been featured in the Muse IndiaThe Little Journal of Northeast IndiaSpillwords, a collection titled Unsent Letters: From the South Asian Diaspora (2021), and forthcoming in four anthologies of poetry and memoir. 

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