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Vismai Rao
​
I Imagine a Different Parting


We meet one last time—I don't spell out
to you the ways in which we've grown

apart. The setting is a sandy shore with a sea
across so blue we almost forget

why we're here. My mind wanders
to the Ancients who saw Venus

make a five-petalled star around Earth
over a span of eight years—a thing it never did.

How did the world feel when told it was the center
of no one's universe? The sand beneath our feet

is warm and malleable, ready to carry us away
in opposite directions. Like samaras
​
from a maple we detach, wordlessly— 
The wind makes wings of our bodies.





​NEXT



Vismai Rao's poems appear or are forthcoming in Salamander, RHINO, Rust + Moth, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Pithead Chapel, Psaltery & Lyre, Rogue Agent, SWWIM, & elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Orison Anthology. She serves as Poetry Editor for The Night Heron Barks.
  • Home
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