Lenora
seen-through body touched by a pulse so faint
it’s a glow about the chest
—are you there?
I’ve a sadness I say
a callous nest of ligament
in the scooped-out shallow
of my hipbone.
A sadness
little rows of buttons pressed powder faces
—lines for noses, curly skritches for eyes
set on tongue crushed between molars,
fine dust left on lips left
oh little where-
have-you-gone
where have you gone?
Pressed to silt dust
this time for mourning
not gladness but weeping
my chest cavity withers.
Sealed eyes rattle in plastic pockets
pop pop-pop
foil split from backing—rows
pink & pink & pink
and a row of white.
A pale watery streak
left where— oh where
oh little barely-
there you were never
there.
A time for casting
for gathering fingers so thin,
a radiance around the wrist.
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Mia Ayumi Malhotra recently received her MFA from the University of Washington, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in such places as Cerise Press, diode, Monarch Review and the Asian American Literary Review. She is the recipient of the MacLeod-Grobe Poetry Prize and the Academy of American Poets’ Harold Taylor Prize, and currently serves as the associate editor of Lantern Review: A Journal of Asian American Poetry.
