Melanie
Daddy liked Melanie Wilkes.
That I liked dresses of silk
didn’t impress him much –
this bothered me none.
I knew the Melanies.
There were cigarette burns
on their tits.
Nikolai, or the Prodigal Roommate
Last night you kept me awake
with your tossing and turning
and muttered curses
about the sublimity of dreams
unexplained.
And today you are gone
leaving a damp-sock absence in your wake.
Infinitely harder to bear.
Adreyo Sen is an MFA student at Stony Brook, Southampton. A resident of Kolkata, India, he has been published in Danse Macabre and Kritya.

