The Closer to the Water the Better

We were strolling
through a neighborhood we didn’t
know, and found

a small pond lit up
by street light, the water
churning with fish.

We leaned on the fence
for a closer look
and talked about how nice

it must be to live in one
of the houses facing the pond—
the closer to the water

the better, we decided.
Then we heard some-
thing fall into the pond,

followed by a horse laugh—
we saw two teenage boys
on the other side

and a cat thrashing in the water.
By the time we reached
the spot, the boys had

fled and the pond had turned
still. Behind us,
in the house closest

to the water, its windows
brightly lit, it was
the quiet of a nice evening.

To Begin Again

The right forefinger between the brows,
then down to the middle
of the chest, the left shoulder, the right,
and back up to the forehead—
twenty-five times in quick succession.

If I lost count, or if the finger didn’t
land on the right spots, I’d begin
again. Every single night, as the night
watchman banged his stick
on the hollow-steel lamp posts to alert

the neighborhood to thieves and burglars,
mosquitoes whining outside
the mosquito net. I couldn’t fall asleep
without the ritual done right.
Years later, for months in a row, my son,

aged eight, couldn’t help touching things—
walls, tabletops, his face—to feel assured
all was well. There was a method to it, too,
a rhythm in which his hand moved
from surface to surface in a certain way,

like mine touching my forehead, chest, shoulders.
If the rhythm broke, he’d
begin again. Outside his school,
his classmate’s grandfather walks
down straight lines in the cobbled square

as he waits for his grandson to come out—
he picks a line, follows it till the end,
turns, and walks back up, eyes fixed
on the ground. If anyone gets in the way,
he stops, then goes back. To begin again.

Eugene Datta is the author of the poetry collection Water & Wave (Redhawk, 2024). His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Dalhousie Review, Main Street Rag, Common Ground Review, ONE ART, Rust & Moth, Mantis, Hamilton Stone Review, and elsewhere. Born and raised in India, he lives in Aachen, Germany.