Soap Friend
“Bent// on redemption,/ penitence is your fetish./ You are guilty of nothing, scrubbed/ to the quick.// You’re smarting and hence alive…” By Vidhu Aggarwal.
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Benares
“No board exams here./ The living are coached on dying,/ the dead on rebirthing,/ the priests on parody…” By Arundhathi Subramaniam.
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from ‘Nacciyar Tirumoli’—Take Me to His Sacred Places
“Uncover me. Why should I wear modesty when the world knows of my barefaced love?…” Translated from Andal’s ‘Nacciyar Tirumoli’ by Priya Sarukkai Chabria.
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Dialogue of the Lady Monsters
“Dear Lady:/ I am sorry to inform you/ your star will someday blaze out/ & die. I know you do not/ hear me nor, if hear, believe…” By Minal Hajratwala.
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Flower Gardens
“Lately, I am told, in my native land, mothers stay up long into the night staring at all of the dark…” Weekend poem, by Zainab Syed.
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October Hurricane
“Our hometown seems so far,/and the moments I miss…/even though they were,/more likely, /ordinary, /like any memories—/hooked by human love,/the most relentless of barbs…”
Poem of the Week (February 17), by Domenic Scopa.
Global Warming
“Perhaps desire moves in atoms,/ embedding itself in other hearts…” Weekend poem, by Jane Frank.
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Unstressed/Weak
“it’s possible this poem/ won’t be believed…” Poem of the Week (February 10), by Annabel Banks.
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Fairy tale
“After all, who tells lambs/ they are raised for slaughter?” Weekend poem, by Shobhana Kumar.
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Roots
“You bend your head,/ offering up a scalp for my perusal,/ inviting some small sense of revelation/ in this act of witness.” Poem of the Week (February 3), by Rosalind Jana.
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