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here, now, close
o spirit sweeping the minute
hand—o lord blinking
the digital clock dots—nightly
trucks that lug each junked loss
clog my brain’s
braided roadways (synapses
to my psychiatrist, flashbacks
to my therapist). sunrise & i
envy mist lowering its eyelids
over the mountains. mouth parched,
lips bobbling, i’m a filament
flickering with traffic (you & me
as memory) attempting
passage. where are you now? when
are you? my lips (my lips) a thousand
years discovered under the tongue don’t matter
stone butch sonnet
i wanted you so i went. smoked & sped
down the esplanade
to crash the dinner party
that included my enemy’s bestie, my bestie’s
boss, & the boss’s pup, hot in a fetter chain
plus, a pig’s worth of leather, to find you
missing. lonely i make eyes
at the pup who tugs lucky guests
around the room (how every time i pulled
your chest harness’s silver
back hoop, you said im yours
im yours im yours). you waste me
& waste is of use to me (yes—like the bull’s
red, the arrow’s eye, the magnet’s metal. you’re mine).
Aishvarya Arora is a poet, teaching artist, and cultural organizer from Queens, New York. They’re the author of Mr. Time (Gold Line Press, forthcoming 2026). Their writing has appeared in Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry Northwest, The Brooklyn Rail, and Foglifter, among other publications. Currently, they live in Ithaca, New York and create poetry ephemera through their micropress, Lavender Codex.
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