INKPOT - Poetry by Nitoo Das

Seven, eight-bodied

(Written for the idiom: “ga xatkhon-aathkhon”)

My language (the language

I refuse to speak) knows well

how to be happy.

My language (the language

my ma writes in) multiplies

bodies into numbers. Seven, eight,

nine, ten. They burst

and repeat themselves

in vast laughter.

My language (the language

I have forgotten) fragments

faces into grins. It shows teeth. Bodies

shout, shriek, skip and turn

into mirrored crows’ feet of glee.

My language (the language

I mime when in pain) doubles you over.

It makes you clutch stomachs, seven

or eight stomachs in tears of delight.

It throws back heads, strains throats.

Yes, seven or eight throats.

My language (the language

I visit only in poems) pleases enough

to slam shut eyes. Shakes bodies

like aging leaves and

infects everything around it.

 

The voiceless velar fricative

I am the x in oxomiya,

xenduriya xondhiya,

xonjiboni. Very few can

voice me.

Stamped different, marked

minority, marked unspeakable,

I survive in small pockets

of the world.

An airiness invades

me like an unknown quality.

I am a secret

between lovers. I am an articulated silence

shaky with lust. I am singularity

of sound. I am a nation’s

difficult past. I am bound

and sung by rules of the tongue.