Aubade – Written ‘In Synergy’ with Richard May (The Kiss, mixed media collage, detail)
Your shape is my shape now,
I know every angle of you.
My eyes are full;
Images of your body are saved.
I die a thousand deaths,
I am terrified;
Behind the windowpane, I weep and I weep alone.
Flense the language of my body,
I want to lie next to you;
Stripped-clean,
Disappearing in the dawn of your skin.
Cupid’s Bow – Written ‘In Synergy’ with Richard May (The Kiss, mixed media collage, detail)
Ruby, lips are corundum,
Its Cupid’s bow a convolution,
Brackish waters evaporate
In the maw, squashing through the
Narrow vulpine jawline.
Mixed greens, confined spaces
Adhesives working against the law, and
Obeying the Gods too, predicament.
Time to erode the gratuitous atoms.
The unglamorous ore
Succumbs to its demons to break into
Tiny crystals of exotic luster-
To put the ruddy apples to shame,
To conquer the intoxication of
Cabernet Sauvignon,
To swallow the charm of Red Petunia.
And, sketch a vermilion border
Ribboning the face pearls
Born in the Oyster wombs,
Carefully filling those lips with Ruby.
Nidhi Agrawal, who grew up in India, focuses on issues of emotional and physical trauma in her poetry. She strongly believes that poetry is a combination of joy and pain and wonder; a tool that keeps her going in life and is driven by the intense physical and emotional trauma she has encountered through her medical condition.
Nidhi’s writings have been featured by Yugen Quest Review, Quadrant Australia, Girl Talk HQ, eShe Magazine, University of California, Riverside, Say it Forward, Chicago School of Arts, Lewis Clark State College’s literary journal, St. Francisco University’s journal, The Elevation Review (Kneeland Poetry Inc.), The Dillydoun Review, Xavier Review Press, California State Poetry Society, and Signal Mountain Review-The University of Tennessee, Chronogram Magazine, Letters (Yale University), Setu Journal, Spill Word Press, South Asian Today, Indian Periodical, Rising Phoenix Review, Life in 10 Minutes Press, Ariel Chart, Women’s Web, Women for One, Lekh, Garland Magazine, and Muse India. She is the author of “Confluence.”
