person Arushi Singh, one poem

Arushi Singh, a poet, book reviewer, and literature student from India, has poems forthcoming in Radius: Poetry from the centre to the edge and Chiron Review, and currently in The Big Windows Review, Literary Yard, Fourth and Sycamore, Anti-Heroin Chic, Cat on A Leash and others.

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IN MEDIAS RES

Mother is what comes
Before and after my           face
Father is the aftermath of break in my umbilical
Cord
Mother holds and kisses his face
The contractions are not yet bad enough
Mother smiles- two crescents, halfway up like a
hanging boat ride
Father will remember this day
Years of hard distance between them
dissipating in the wetness of one
kiss
Mother starts to crumple, my sister can see the wrinkles
On her face
Father arches his eyebrows
Mother lets out a howl like a
Wolf looking for the moonlight
Father passes out in fear
A man- too many chemicals and birth at his door
Mother screams and screams and screams till
The blood slowly abandons her bones
By the time father rises, there isn’t much to resurrect
We traded birth for life
The doctor smiles- baby in her arms
Rocked to silence like the warmth of a lamb’s skin
After the lion kisses his face
Father holds the child
A dead mother’s body tied to a memoir
Cutting the cord he lifts me
Up

And smiles
Remembering how much I look like her last           lover

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