In Which Relapse and Recovery Share a Prefix
In which a bat sings sweetly
and the sound reverberates
in its cave, in which my friends
build an altar and relearn
the rhythm of one another’s breath,
in which I return to the dispensary
and am drawn forward, forward. In which
we recount the fingers we have lost,
in which we recall to sweep the ash
from our sternums, in which we reschedule therapy
again. I came here to redeliver this flesh
to God as we once knew Him. To relapse
is to remember in your human
body all your techniques to tamper
with Eden—but listen. To walk
in a circle is to revisit home
with loving callus on your toes.
To repeat yourself is to pray over
your favorite stories. And to recover
is to tread the same ground
you have always tread, eyes open,
palms to the sky, making a mockery of time.
Meditations on a Panoply
after Karisma Price
I want to split the spliff but I can’t, because of the pandemonium. I’d love to babysit, but—
the panopticon. Maybe it’ll be over soon, the paella. I wanted to reach out,
touch the stubble on your skin, but the palindrome. I wanted to feel another body
rubbing heat into mine, but the pyrite. You couldn’t catch me out like that in a
pansexual. My friends planned twice then thrice to clasp their hands in marriage
because, the damn panacea. It’s hard to feed a lover and his love when, everywhere,
in your shuddering heart, is the pancetta. When the liquor called me, I knew to caw back
from a crow’s beak but what will I speak from in the Pretoria? I’ve been so lonely in the
parakeet. Can’t handmake you a meal in a premonition. Won’t risk your dad’s health in a
prevaricate. Couldn’t find the words for the periodontist. My Dadu had a bridge group of six before
one by one by one, floating fire on the lake’s surface, how are your elders, and are they
holding their solitude warm like a face upturned to the sun? I was glad to hear your aunt
survived. There were others that didn’t and that’s what it is, a perennial. Sometimes it’s
a lovingly cooked meal and sometimes it’s me rocking in my rain boots, mask fogging my twin
windows, and my neighbor’s saying, I think on the kingdom of heaven. My children come by
once a week, and I think on the kingdom of heaven, and I wave my goodbyes. What can you do but pray
in a
Sagaree Jain (they/them) is a poet, writer, artist, and queer from the Silicon Valley. Their writing has been featured in Autostraddle, The Margins, them. magazine, and The Offing, where they’re also an Assistant Editor. Their collaborative poetry collection with Arati Warrier, Longing and Other Heirlooms, is the winner of the Eggtooth Editions Chapbook Contest and is forthcoming fall of 2021. They are class and caste privileged and tweet at @sagareejain.
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