ANANYA KANAI SHAH

Aftermath

The grief leaves me breathless when I see a green clay cat
I made at five on my grandmother’s windowsill, her saris still
neatly folded. The voice corrodes my sleep: Do you think
you still belong? I am not used to this feeling—
the dreams of her combing my hair, the soft air on my throat.
I can give it a name: anxiety, the art of being both hunter and prey.
Do you guess when you see me?
I cannot tell if the noise makes it to you.
The story of the princess from the Aravalli Hills:
locked in her room, she rearranges furniture every night.
An isotopic configuration of what is there, an isotopic thought.
To rupture it I focus on the moan of the swing in the dark.
Your soft swell after a verbena shower.