My Husband Eats a Crocodile at the Bangkok Night Market

Aparna Upadhyaya Sanyal

Yes, you eat the tail bit.
Is good and fatty, yes.
You are a manly man, la,
taking this one for a wife.
Good and fatty, this one too.
How grateful is she that you find her?
Sitting in fat pond waiting for
swan, this duck, la?
See this crocodile, my friend?
We scoop
tender chunks from its back.
Meat best to eat
when it bruises bone. And we scoop it out,
say, ‘ex-co-ri-ate,’
raw, yet so juicy—
texture will undress on your rock tongue.
The spine, la?
We no crack the spine, not yet.
How to sell meat if the beast  
not whole?
Even on the spit it must grin, see?
Brother,
I get you beer; we toast—
you taking a duck and eating
the meat.
And you buy your wife the shawl
with wool wings on the back;
she fly up to meet
you in the sky, yes?
You god, you man, you hard
handsome muscle,
she so lucky on your arm, your
grinning, fatty beast.

Aparna Upadhyaya Sanyal holds an MA from Kings College, London. Her debut book of narrative poems titled Circus Folk & Village Freaks, released in Sept 2018 with Vishwakarma Publications, is currently ranked as a Bestseller on Amazon India. She is a recipient of the 14th Beullah Rose Poetry Prize by Smartish Pace. She was shortlisted for the 2018 Third Coast Fiction Prize. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Smartish Pace, Dunes Review, SOFTBLOW, Typehouse Literary Review and many more. She is featured on the masthead of the Songs of Eretz Poetry Review as a Frequent Contributor.