Illustration by Camilla Marchese
what should you have said
to the aunt who poured herself into the sink
the day the others went out to lunch on the hill.
pat down your rippled skirt, fatal, turn
the other side:
nothing is more or less than the unfurling
of a picnic blanket, of an inheritance
on flaky grass, did you hear
the evil crash of the faucet, did you hear
your father brace the door,
pleat her chin, map her brow,
his jacket heavy with sweat for
his blood sister. it was
summer. while you
were walking north of your body.
she was opened like a veil, just
a shape of light inside.
Armaan Bamzai is an eighteen-year-old Indian writer whose writing has appeared in Polyphony Lit, body without organs and others. He is a freshman at Columbia University (where he’s Copy Editor at Quarto!) and hopes that one day he will create an abundance.