ISSUE VI
Suchita Senthil Kumar
Genesis
My father once said:
when you cry,
an entire village
must cry with you.
My limbs, quiet
and ugly.
This sadness
is too solitary
to be any noble.
I wish for the darkness
beneath my eyes to wisp
into a glow over my brows.
At night,
I pray for strength
to sit with silence.
This silence,
the kind God feared
at the start
forcing him to create
the earth, just to have
somewhere
his knees could fall—
a thud, something
louder than his ache.
And with that,
the birth of the universe.
How noble his grief.
A Fairytale in Three Parts
after Bhanu Kapil
i.
The edge of every petal
is a curve—a blade
that almost was.
Blunt in its sharpness.
The kitten hides its nose
amidst the petals
of a deep carnation.
This home is built
on the tip of a thorn.
ii.
Think of home
in the centre
of a circular field.
Two pies sprinkled
with raisins in the oven.
I rarely get to the part
where we lay a tablecloth,
screech wooden chairs
closer and slice rhubarb.
Most days, we just stare
at its wefts and warps
over familiar red.
iii.
The carnations are still in bloom.
A dead star's spirit undulates
between its cerise petals.
The kitten allows it.
At the dinner table is bread
in the shape of a blossom.
Curved edges, blunt blade.
There is a husband
who assumes it a hibiscus.
Someone eats the flower.
Suchita Senthil Kumar is a poet from Bengaluru, India. Her work has been published in Corvid Queen, Aster Lit and Josephine Quarterly among others. She makes life decisions asking herself one question: Will Bharathiyar be proud? You can find her on Instagram @suchita.senthilkumar or on Twitter as @suchita_senthil.