Jacket on a chair, Sudeep Sen

Jacket on a chair


You carelessly tossed
  the jacket on a chair. 
The assembly of cloth

  collapsed in slow motion
into a heap of cotton --
  cotton freshly picked

from the fields --
  like flesh
without a spine.

  The chair's wooden
frame provided a brief
  skeleton,

but it wasn't enough
  to renew the coat's
shape, the body's

  prior strength,
or the muscle
  to hold its own.

When one peels off
  one's outer skin,
it is difficult

  to hide
the true nature of
  blood.

Wood, wool, stitches,
  and joints --
an epitaph

  of a cardplayer's 
shuffle,   
  and the history

of my dark faith.

(based on Cezanne's Jacket on a chair)

Sudeep Sen, in Incarnadine/Incarnat, édition bilingue, traduction Bernard Turle, ed Tartuga 2017