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In Xanadu did Kubla Khan…

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About Paulami

Paulami Sengupta is an editorial consultant based in Kolkata. Her poems (in English and Bengali) and translations have been published in The Dreaming Machine, Nether, Cold Noon, and The Sunflower Literary Collective. Her recent collection of Bengali poems (under her pen name Anjashi) is titled Bayosandhir Haraf (Boibhashik, 2021). Her first collection of poems in English, Maximum Love in Patel Nagar (Red River), has been published in 2023.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan…

In this neighbourhood,
buildings are trees.
Across the fish market,
sentries guard ‘Pine leaves’.
‘Rapunzel’ is not ready.
Reddish-brown bushes
hide its make-shift toilet, where
masons move like shadows.

Rich loam is infectious.
I would like to grow too.
Rise high
With sacks and sacks of sand and cement.

Workers will water my floors with lyrics.
Contractors in shorts will wash the mud off their legs.
And hammer the board with my name
 ‘Dust storm’.

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