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PARTITION HOMES, BY SNEHA SUBRAMANIAN KANTA

​                                                               
                                                                         (i)

Exile begins in the throat.
A lost body.

                         A forgotten horizon
                         or the shield of stars.

Ventricular. A harpsichord
with ocean, sand, and salt.

                         The checkpoint of fog— ​
                         mossgreen scapula.

A winter of absence
trucks lined in Rawalpindi

                         boats set off the shore
                         beside a dawning Jhelum.


                                                                         (ii)

Exile begins in the throat.
An arrival.

                         How many words do I
                         know for hunger?

What is the nestling space
between two countries

                         of conflict called?
                         What is the name of basil

or the hinterland hills
or the city where my

                         grandmother first embraced
                         tenderness without speaking

of it? Again the roaring
winds across a tarpaulin.

                         Again another river
                         charcoaling at night.

You dream in three languages,
at least one of them despair.


                                                                         (iii)

                         Exile begins in the throat.
                         A departure.

The call of a cliff
or a gutter-stream.

                         Filament flourish, a violet
                         pattern synecdoche.

My grandmother left
a home

                         sailing across two countries.
                         A silent floating accompanies

the whirr of a ship. These
may be fangs, or a dagger.

                         Hinge. The soft gauze.
                         A day of massacre.


                                                                         (iv)

Exile begins in the throat.
A lost body.

                         Famished sky of vapor
                         clouds. An assembly

vortex. The trees fraction
into half. Where will you

                         grow thickness
                         if not into the landscape?

Remember. A family.
Two daughters.

                         Four sons. Partition.
                         Welt. Ship. Rising tides.



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Sneha Subramanian Kanta is a writer from Canada. She has been awarded the first Vijay Nambisan Fellowship 2019. She is a recipient of The Charles Wallace Fellowship (2018-19) at The University of Stirling. She has been awarded the GREAT scholarship and earned a second postgraduate degree in literature from The University of Plymouth. She is the founding editor of Parentheses Journal and reader for Tinderbox Poetry Journal.
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