i must, however write
Saru Potturi
these keys, those keys, press into the hardened
flesh of my fingers, rough from metal string and
aching from nails bitten right down to the skin
bird-like nubs deformed like babies set in baskets
down the stream. but here's a eulogy, as mama
cries and pa pretends to grieve: you were meant
for something greater, karna, moses of the seas.
and karma's got her vice-like grip upon my toes:
my kafka on the shore; and all my lines and squiggles
might be just that: glorified remnants of worlds that
i'm no longer privy to. i prithee, let me birth you,
half-formed baby splitting my skull; i'm not your home.
i'm not your home, you overgrown child, like a canopy
growing in me, rumbling my intestines to make room.
and this, and this is why they sent their basket case
down the stream: for fear and knowledge that if not
you would never leave. my fingers are itching to
cast you out; i'm witch as can be, stirring at cauldron
and stewing in my resentment. these keys, those keys
nothing's enough for you, nothing's good enough,
nothing's good. perhaps it is i who will not let you go
i who keeps you in: for fear and knowledge that when
sent out to the world, you will return unrecognizable
or perhaps not at all. that's what it means to be a parent,
to know the kind of hell-scape you're bringing that ball
of skin and bone and brain into. but if i give you
wings, will you mold into icarus? my fingers twitch
at the thought, ever so slightly, stuttering upon the
keys, and making a sound most unpianoesque. it's
a burlesque of sorts, the water-damaged wood jeering
at technicolor screen: oh, i'm glitching, i'm glitching.
these keys, those keys, endeavor to push you out,
ghost possessing me, apparition playing my grotesque
fingers like puppets on strings, hardened from string;
if i bring my own hands up to my face and build
monuments from rods and cones, will you leave?
who will i be when you're gone? will i be empty?
are you the very intestines i thought you pushed
around like a toddler does toy trains? a double suicide;
make that double, please. if i die, will my words write
me a eulogy, or will they suss me out, cuss me out
leave my bones to rot? it's karma at its finest. strings
are bars and so are lines: still, however, i must write.
flesh of my fingers, rough from metal string and
aching from nails bitten right down to the skin
bird-like nubs deformed like babies set in baskets
down the stream. but here's a eulogy, as mama
cries and pa pretends to grieve: you were meant
for something greater, karna, moses of the seas.
and karma's got her vice-like grip upon my toes:
my kafka on the shore; and all my lines and squiggles
might be just that: glorified remnants of worlds that
i'm no longer privy to. i prithee, let me birth you,
half-formed baby splitting my skull; i'm not your home.
i'm not your home, you overgrown child, like a canopy
growing in me, rumbling my intestines to make room.
and this, and this is why they sent their basket case
down the stream: for fear and knowledge that if not
you would never leave. my fingers are itching to
cast you out; i'm witch as can be, stirring at cauldron
and stewing in my resentment. these keys, those keys
nothing's enough for you, nothing's good enough,
nothing's good. perhaps it is i who will not let you go
i who keeps you in: for fear and knowledge that when
sent out to the world, you will return unrecognizable
or perhaps not at all. that's what it means to be a parent,
to know the kind of hell-scape you're bringing that ball
of skin and bone and brain into. but if i give you
wings, will you mold into icarus? my fingers twitch
at the thought, ever so slightly, stuttering upon the
keys, and making a sound most unpianoesque. it's
a burlesque of sorts, the water-damaged wood jeering
at technicolor screen: oh, i'm glitching, i'm glitching.
these keys, those keys, endeavor to push you out,
ghost possessing me, apparition playing my grotesque
fingers like puppets on strings, hardened from string;
if i bring my own hands up to my face and build
monuments from rods and cones, will you leave?
who will i be when you're gone? will i be empty?
are you the very intestines i thought you pushed
around like a toddler does toy trains? a double suicide;
make that double, please. if i die, will my words write
me a eulogy, or will they suss me out, cuss me out
leave my bones to rot? it's karma at its finest. strings
are bars and so are lines: still, however, i must write.
|
Saru Potturi is an Indian poet-writer who aims to question and challenge the nature of personhood, pothook, and reinvention-- and write some ear-pleasing rhymes in the process.
(Pomona College '24) |