Kalighat In Calcutta Poem by Karen Swenson

The sheets and nightgowns semaphore a breeze,
next door to Kali's multicolored dome,
the sun-bleached, tattered signals from the dying.

Below, in the street, a mother suckles as
a barber shaves her head. We watch from where
the sheets and nightgowns semaphore a breeze.

Hair scatters under rickshaw wheels. Skull, breast,
child's head, are brown balloons from here among
the sun-bleached, tattered signals from the dying.

Religion's sacrifice or lice? A sacred
cow breaks her fast on a shrine's marigolds,
while sheets and nightgowns semaphore a breeze.

A man, in the street's throbbing hive of color,
grills silver fish, sends up delicious incense
to sun-bleached, tattered signals from the dying.

Next door the gutters run with goat's blood, as Kali
imbibes her feast. Above those twitching legs,
the sun-bleached tattered signals from the dying
of sheets and nightgowns semaphore a breeze.