[Poem by Srishti Dutta Chowdhury, painting of Ometepe]

your hand is a syringe snuck up my nerve tonight. the sky is dust. the spit is your root canal lodged in my spine. there is a nip in the air. old letters  mock the din of the door. a fishbone in my throat, your name. the word dislodged dissolve my eyes into salt. i write in peace. the map unfolds-this is not how i wanted to go- a pick between my left eye keeps it open. i see clear, i see nothing. i own my outrageous love at blind stations. the windows flap shut. there is someone i do not see. i could lie down here. i could lie. i could. i.

what is, is. what will be, will not.

god sobs in my arms. call me ishmael tonight.

Srishti Dutta Chowdhury is the Charles Wallace Scholar for Creative Writing in the University of Edinburgh (2016) and a Masters student of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University. She has been just finished editing a chapbook that will be sent for publication shortly. She has been published at TFQM, Visual Verse, Coldnoon Travel Poetics, Bangalore Review, Muse India, the Norwich Radical, Kindle, etc. Besides poetry, she is also an avid translator and food photographer.Instagram @whatkatyatenext