Species

Last night I watched sea creatures

crawling out of myself, joining

a slow catharsis of crabs. I went to bed

holding their hollow. I dreamt of a tide

carrying their speech and breath

as one smooth riff. Call it the acoustic of pain.

Call it what you will. I heard a language

howling at the edge of existence,

when a tongue is all its accent protects.

I swam past a humpback, a hammerhead,

a fangtooth, a squid. My own animal just

granules of a scene misremembered.

My DNA shredded into atoms, dissolved

in ancient / antiquity / annihilate / Anthropocene. 

I woke on the shore of the bed, anchored

to ambition. Faithful to fate. Burning with the salt

of my species. O animal anagrammed on the mirror,

O form livid with life. O chalice, brimming breast of

Hunger. Cast this body into something.

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Debmalya Bandyopadhyay (he/him) is a writer and mathematician based in Birmingham, UK. His poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Couplet Poetry, The Bangalore Review, Propel, Anthropocene Poetry, The Hooghly Review, Counterclock, and Spacebar, among other literary journals. He was a finalist for Sweet Literary’s 2024 Poetry Award. He has lived by Ganga, Kaveri, Teesta, Rhea, and Thames.