Jojo-Buri

the moon watches over you, when

whales beach themselves, the tides wash

them back home; the moon looks down

at you, turners of calendar pages,

walkers of floodlit woods

you stare back and see expanses

of nothing every month, for

the moon sleeps as you do,

crescentine before and after, like

roti to the hungry and distorted face

to the fearful—the moon circles

you and your kin, maybe even next of;

it beckons man into wolf, the

packs of hunters trace shadows

only to be given away by instinct,

slip-of-the-tongue howls and songs

of ebb, of flow, of eerie miseries you long for

Stewie Chatterjee is a writer and law student based in Dhaka. Find their work @stewiechatterjee on Instagram.