Interlude at Neighborhood Gas Station
& the nozzle is mouth enough,
& the engine cuts like a fine blade
sharpening the redwoods
into a funeral of hands, grasping
& I have clipped my wings to shed
the season of you, its slow decay
to bone, a red apple whittled down
to its wick, the flame crushed to dust
between our names & the gas station
is a blinking white & the man
behind the counter wears his eyes
like two drains circling themselves
& because I am parched
for my own blood, I consider his hands
& the memories they could cleave,
I consider the familiar ruin of prayer
as midnight slow dances towards a thin sheet
of morning, consider emerging,
a small, red bird limping across the tar,
emptied of your ghost until
& again until
& again.
Sanam Sheriff is a poet and writer from Bangalore, India. She recently graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in Creative Writing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Academy of American Poets, The Shade Journal, All Def Poetry, Button Poetry, and Apiary Magazine. She was an invited participant at the 2018 Winternachten Literature Festival in The Netherlands, and The Philly Pigeon Grand Slam Champion of 2016. She is currently traveling the world as a 2018-2019 Watson Fellow. Her writing explores the intricacies within and beyond the self in pursuit of a constant, transformative vulnerability.