Water
Poem
by Akhila Kolisetty • Art by Mitch Miller
I.
they
sat by candles floating in the Ganges
and
saw their lives ebb and flow
with
the drifting moon-tide,
and
sealed water-droplets of their coarse
memories
into falling jars made of
starlit
melodies;
water
threaded their destinies together,
as
the midnight spray dusted their
sky-bound
bodies
II.
he
told her that she was amaryllis,
so
fragrant that she could
make
any man swoon –
and
her eyes peeked out from behind bars
to
touch his entrails with their raw
bleakness.
he
grew her as a perennial,
waiting
for her frosty cage to thaw
before
her thorns could
recede
into pearly blossoms,
before
she became nothing but a
springtime
illusion
III.
she
wondered whether the clouds
could
hear their secrets
but
it turned out that they were
made
of God's whispers
and
they naturally flocked towards
that
deep-dark nature of hidden things,
like
the centuries of dust that sits
unheard
on withered paintings
or
brilliant peacock feathers left
to
float alone in the dying breeze
|
|
