It becomes utterly impossible day by day
to trust my slippers anymore; they end up everywhere
like an ancient folklore
They are, it seems, perfect somnambulists
at heart, as if, some place on earth is yet to be lost

They end up near the landing
or in the garden or in the kitchen or a neighbour’s attic
The lonely garage blissfully sleeps
with them in spring
and, sometimes, they fall asleep, drained, at 4 A.M sharp
near my couch . And they always sleep-walk, say,
to my  house’s endless doorstep

On a Tuesday night in autumn, I find my dear flip-flops
near the loft’s  small door
to a long dark corridor decked up
with sequins and cheap fluorescent meteors ;  the next day, I go out
in the middle of the night
to fetch them from a nearby soccer playground

Beside my flip-flops, I find
An elderly and freckled sky sleeps with the stars, planets
and the core of the galaxy
like a homeless family
I touch it; it is soft, balmy and endless. Like an address

Sekhar Banerjee is an author. He has four poetry collections and a monograph on an Indo-Nepal border tribe to his credit. His works have been published in The Bitter Oleander, Indian Literature, Muse India, Setu, Ink Sweat and Tears, Bengaluru Review, Kitaab, Cafe Dissensus and elsewhere. He lives in Kolkata, India.