My Dead Flowers

My Dead Flowers

We

A poem

Buku Sarkar's avatar
Buku Sarkar
Sep 30, 2025
∙ Paid

A poem from my forthcoming collection My Dead Flowers (Harper Collins India, January 2026

We



What would we each be 
Each to each
If we there was no we 
Between you and I

Then there’d be 
No Agneau with cumin
We ate yesterday
Or the shrimp soup
You cooked the night before
Because I was not well. 

There’d be no whispers
In French
Asking me to move over
Because you’re almost out of the bed
And that je tombe du lit
Has a different euphamistic meaning 
Than what AI tells me these days. 


I ask AI, what would life be without m in it 
It answers: 

That depends—who is Mo to you? A friend, a partner, a pet, a mentor? Sounds like they’re important to you, so I imagine life would feel different—maybe emptier, maybe freer, maybe just… different. What makes you wonder about this?

So I changed the m to Mon amour 
And now it tells me 

If “Mon amour” is someone you deeply love, then life without them would likely feel like a huge shift—maybe quieter, maybe lonelier, maybe just missing a cer…
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