POETRY

வசந்தா—SPRING

By Vasantha Sambamurti     VOLUME 55.1

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Say namesake is never enough.
Say it does not speak
my breath into
the bright of her mind.

i.

Nomenclature
made my mother a poet
and her mother gold,
made me        (baby)
a memorial for a woman
I did not know.

ii.

வசந்தா: our name is
a bright season
neither were born in,
a question of dual attribution,
language rarely spoken.

iii.

In my shallows
I imagine her thoughts,
their surface        (down-soft)
pales brilliance,

runs shallower than my palm’s
third line (வாழ்க்கை)

speaks the brevity of
her life
and, perhaps,
mine.


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VASANTHA SAMBAMURTI is a poet, translator, and prose writer. They are pursuing an MFA at the University of Arkansas’ program in Creative Writing and Translation. She is a senior editor at Transition Magazine. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, her work appears or is forthcoming in Northwest Review, Portland Review, Exchanges: A Journal of Literary Translation, the Minnesota Review, Cream City Review, and elsewhere


VOLUME 55.1