I wait like an orange waits, in the shoebox 

for sin (the cathedral). Full of round and citric pain, 

as sinister as fruitcake, as long winded 

as my mother’s hair, her swinging cacophony

smooth as kissed stones, as bright as pulpy moons 

hung from the tree. It is as hot 

as a bee swarm where I come from. 

Where I come from, there is a saying: 

the cock squawker that rises 

with the sun chomps the wiggler. 

But the rooster is already churning in the pot, 

and the river is a nascent thundercloud 

I tie around my finger (a dirty ribbon). 

In the heat of the glory hole, 

my tongue makes a pearl of a universe-

defecated particle, 225 million years old.

At the end of all this, I want to give you something.

Published June 20th, 2021

Rhoni Blankenhorn is an M.F.A. candidate in Poetry and Literary Translation at Columbia University, where she serves as a Chair’s Fellow for the writing program. Her writing can be found in Hyperallergic, 92Y’s Podium, and Some Kind of Opening.

Kaveri Raina is an artist born in New Delhi, India, now based in Brooklyn, New York. Raina earned a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and was an artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her work has been exhibited by M+B in Los Angeles, PATRON Gallery in Chicago, Assembly Room in New York City, and Annarumma Gallery in Naples, among many others. Kaveri’s recent exhibition at M+B, NO LACKS, ME AND MY SHADOW, can be viewed online, along with more of her work at PATRON Gallery and Luhring Augustine.