Contributor: Jagari Mukherjee

- -
I loved him.
Then he asked, "Do you drink?
Drinking is bad. Good Indian girls don't drink.
I cannot marry you if you drink."

I am compelled to think.

Flashback

At New Orleans a few months ago

I walked down
Frenchmen Street
At 12 am
Watching
A party on the road
People lost and found in dancing

I held
A cherry bomb
Dark cherry rum
Heaven in a ball
Swilling every few steps
A blue and silver velvet dress
Blue lace agate earrings
For the concert attended
At Preservation Hall
And an alligator dinner
At The Court of Two Sisters...

(Moon in gauzy sky
Voodoo magic in air)

"You're beautiful!" A young man
Told me poetically on the road --
I nodded in acknowledgement.

Life's an enchantment.

Back to the present

He asks. "Do you drink?"
I look at him.
"I'm beautiful. I have tasted alligator flesh."
I say.
I walk away.


- - -
Jagari Mukherjee is bilingual poet from Kolkata, India. She is a gold medalist in English Literature from University of Pune. Her writings have appeared or are forthcoming in several international newspapers, journals, and anthologies, including Plum Tree Tavern, Labyrinthine Passages, Duane’s PoeTree, Vox Poetica, Margutte, Tuck Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, and others.