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issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii
ISSUE 3: NIMBUS
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issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii
ANSHITA PALORKAR
issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii
prelude factory
Anshita Palorkar | Poetry
with every tomato stalk
I incise the first
breath of light
every day, I fill Campbell’s soup cans
with crumpled spacetime
hand-me-downs
my nails trace and puncture
soap bubble universes
that bleed — ripe or rotten
it's child's play to me,
this vegetable garden
of seed-swelling worlds
my colleague says otherwise,
that “a job is a job is a job”
and tosses another.
waiting in the wings
Anshita Palorkar | Poetry
the maw of gravity with its bloody tongue
– a bear trap. prelude and prologue, i land
onto an empty, endless, soundless street
the sun is a burning, greedy thing today
and all its arms are out to get me.
one step and the tar is roiling
i reach down, one claw at a time
the surface rends – mercury recoiling.
the sky is raked in banners of silk, dark –
raised by dead gods from every-which-where.
i'd still fish for leftovers if it were blue.
i'm a ragdoll, clutched in the grips
of a harvest moon, dripping red.
the sunset, long abandoned, a thief,
swallowing the sky offstage.
dress rehearsal, role reversal.
the air electrifies, and i must now
meet my makers.
creative license has let them freeze
a primordial’s time and blood within.
they guffaw. “playing with fire, ironic.”
at long last, enter eagle.
i must pick him apart, day in, day out.
on death row, they give me a choice.
"for your last meal, a god or a dream?"
"time," is my reply. they oblige.
i am flung down to the boiling street again
to count my fish, upside-down.
PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN PALEST BLUE ZINE
issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii
Anshita Palorkar (she/her) is an engineering student from India who loves making data confess by day, and writing poetry about the heat death of the universe by night. She also likes frogs. Her work has appeared in Soft Star Mag, Sour Cherry Mag, and more. You can find her on Instagram or Medium @asomewhatchaoticpoet.
issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii issue iii