Evening by Kuhu Joshi
Evening
Kuhu JoshiHow can I describe what I’m unable to praise?
The birds are chirping in the low berry bush.
I don’t know who they are, they don’t know my name. An ambulance,
a siren, the emergency ward I’ve have identified just in case,
sitting at a marbled coffee table, marigolds in a vase. Green, leafy,
dying. God – I like to pretend you’re watching.
In this case, you are a man. It makes sense – I’m lonely.
The earth is not speaking back. The baby cries
in its pram. The mother rocks the pram, hushing,
making her teeth large and shiny. The father smiles at me.
On the bridge, people are carried
in the body of a train, nodding like peonies.
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ABOUT KUHU JOSHI
Kuhu Joshi is an Indian poet and the author of My Body Didn’t Come Before Me (Speaking Tiger, 2023). Her work has been published in Best New Poets, Black Fork Review, Rattle, Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English, and other publications. She earned an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she was a Jane Cooper Poetry Fellow and was awarded an honorable mention for the Academy of American Poets’ John B. Santoianni Prize. She has received support and grants from the Napa Valley… (more)
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ENDNOTES
- Explore other works in pursuit of: mortality • family • God • Or browse the index
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