Gaurav Deka

I thought Gaurav Deka's poem "The wife of the late Cuban smoker" in The Four Quarters here from December 2012 was excellent. He is from India and has a great sense of place, of the sear of memory and experience. I've been reading a lot of Indian poetry lately. Here's an excerpt:

She awaits him,

crushing ochre petals.

smelling the skin

of yellow earth

and green iguanas.

Inebriated, ambling

on rose fields of nicotine.

In soft Belizean breaths,

she spins silent mariachi

of pernicious memories,

swimming in the eyes,

of her Cuban Blue dogs.

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