As the Sky Changes Shape

A question: how do we stay warm?
The same way the ocean makes monsters
out of us. Two big salt-wet dogs sniff a puppy
that looks like a human baby or a tiny bear.
A spill of gulls chases children down the horizon

where I watch from a low-branched tree,
its gnarled legs blooming into mine.
Some of the dogs are going gray
and I remember apologizing over and over
for the countries in my skin. Whose is this?
I don’t want it. A kind of inexhaustibility,
the way they so blindly diffuse. Friends I loved

are buying houses and I can’t talk the way
they talk to small things. That open coo forces
me to look for shade. To howl at blame. I wish
they would stay like me: fighting the line
between nourish and choke.

This weathered kingdom has its rules. Strangers
turn and face the sea. Birds hang low in the air.
I feel something wet; I touch my forehead
and my thumbs come back bright and clear.
On the ground, a pelican chews its wing.
All these trees are close enough to break.


Leela Srinivasan is an Indian-American poet and MFA student at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Meridian, The Inflectionist Review, the tiny journal, Ligeia, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and others. She currently lives in Austin, Texas.

… return to Issue 13.2 Table of Contents.