we continue to be engulfed by everything that remains unknowable

Tanisha Shende

Bergen County Academies Poetry

how do we survive this winter? the gods huddle around this small, diminishing star. how do we survive this tombstone of cold? remember when we went to cyprus to get away from all of this? all the blue jay warmth, all that magnificent trembling? i spoke to you in only truths, that evening, and you have never been one for fear, so we dive into the water, headfirst. under here, our veins go sluggish, ichor meeting staccato in a soprano murmur. we are all divinity, personified in fluttering eyelashes and drifting snow.

tell me the story of the first sunrise, you hum around the chipped mug cradled between your palms like a dying star. you are talking about that first morning of grace and pale ichor where the sky became a lit candle; the mountains and the forests rose up out of the mist, crying, remember the reverence of our ancestors, as if the bottled breath of gods had shattered on the granite tiles and spilled marigolds and sugar over the canyons between them. the one where the rest of us promise each other a new beginning, and the eons spent in a blanket of night fade away into stardust.

the world was so wide, and you, my darling, grappled at the edges like they would turn to cigarette smoke in front of our eyes. that was the night i told you that i was going to leave, remember? not to get away, but to see what comes after— is it anything as peaceful as this? if it is, i promise I’ll come back for you.

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