Anindita Sengupta
The apogee is a tea bowl in the sky,
alluring as kintsugi or kissing. The weight of this earth
flies through air, lights blinking. The weight is
1) gods broken at the shrine
2) the ghost of mother/land
3) when desire becomes outlandish
Consider: A woodlouse
is also called a boat-builder.
A boat-builder could carry someone,
its tiny, strong legs wiggling in dirt,
its robust crustacean body.
A boat-builder would know
how to engineer and mend,
how to manifest the imagined.
or the answer to a question like:
What is kindred built on?
Whimsy, shared taste, book aroma, pop song, tribe of shell and moon.
Communing with sky must pay off
in a harvest of shine—
whether or not
there are others to witness
your small miracles,
This is what I tell myself anyway
as under my feet,
millions of fungi
spore in extraordinary night.
Far below, algae persist,
trembling their tentacles
in a world without light.