A flattened vessel-body descends, resisting patriarchal structures, navigating profound grief and fierce agency. Its bone-sea heart reclaims boundless freedom.
Instead of cotton, she wears gossamer
woven by spiderlings. She floats
from room to room with the wind
in her pallu. A feather duster
extends from her hand
like a wand, making cleaning
a breeze. Her limbs, attuned to chores,
meld into household accoutrements.
By the day’s end, she becomes
square footage.
The whispers of her ability to fly
at will are accurate, but as ever,
the gender divide is impassable.
pallu: a part of the sari draped over the shoulder
After the maze of doors, we walk towards the orb of foretelling. No words are spoken here except for a single soliloquy
redressing my two heads until they are one or fewer. Reduced to a fine line, my conductor gestures for me to be as calm as a lake,
and flattens my world to see through its skin like lace. One by one, my lives are placed in a room heavy with lead,
and separated into flesh and blood as if each is autonomous. After the topography is studied, gloved hands return me to myself,
and like liquid, I form the shape of my vessel again. The verdict is pronounced: the landmass is infected, its earth, rotting.
Time still flows, but it’ll stagnate soon. No solution appears before us, save to clothe myself in shadows, and follow the descent of my breath.
I measured it: four hip-clicks
from the bed to the stance
of a deity. The moon
behind the head is a dome
fed on history.
A conversation in tongues,
of elements of the body,
roots through heaven
like a search and rescue.
A long neck (but not so long
that it’s absurd; just enough
to hold the possibility
of life) oversees the stars.
Two limbs double
like colleagues in tandem.
Heat generates a path,
the scent of pheromones,
and something else.
A single word
holds the body through years
of devotion, whispered
in secret,
like release.
Like stemless flowers
dying alongside each other,
my breasts shrivel
into sunless inexistence,
each deflated convexity
a bare stone rolling down
the bone of my bone,
tracing skeletal conversations,
settling to the bottom of the sea,
raising the water levels a smidge.
Suchita Parikh-Mundul is a writer and copy editor. Her poems have appeared in literary magazines like Narrow Road, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Yugen Quest Review, Outlook India, Muse India, Sahitya Akademi’s Indian Literature, and anthologies such as Amity: peace poems (ed. Sahana Ahmed, Hawakal, 2022), The Well-Earned (ed. Kiriti Sengupta, Hawakal, 2022), and international compilations. Her articles have appeared in print magazines as well as websites.
