Red-Crested Sampan

Red-Crested Sampan ? Shariful Alam June 10, 2025 Hudson, New York United States of America ? If by chance we meet again someday, If desire brings us close once more, I’ll breathe deeply again at the foot of the mountain, Smear your gentle gaze across my soul. I’ll cross treacherous roads— carefully, ever so carefully. On a melancholic evening, I’ll go to Silentville. That day, I will become the blue of night. In a quiet corner, I’ll become your story. You will be the restless sky. When the lights go out, I will be the middle note of longing, and before the intoxication fades, I’ll become a vagabond of boundaries. Upstream will echo your pure lament— Red-crested sampan. I still remember the upside-down world, the crumpled bed sheets. Now, there is no veil between us. A treasure hidden in the koel’s nest— no, why call it hidden treasure? There is nothing hidden between us anymore. Now the rain falls in a romantic rhythm, floodwaters swallowing the language of my poems. It stops, it grows, it loses all borders. Rain falls in secret—so very secretly. Breath wraps around breath, lips stir against lips. In the final shadow of darkness, you said— “Stop here, this is the end. This is my boundary.” Yet, on that boundary, droplets still hung— a little moment ago, a gradual surrender of self. Like a tossed coin— who knows who won, who lost?