Leland Quarterly | Winter 2021
to grow old
Aditi Limaye
Life is a short thing, the flies that buzz around my room will stop their droning gaggle in a day a day or two, anyway. The large gourd-shaped hulk who bellows beneath the depths has over 200 years, that lucky thing and when my son tugs at my pant leg, and asks me why my hair starts to look like the feeling of a key ring, silver and weighed down by things, I read him a book about whales and hope that he will not ask how many whale lives I have left but how many fly lives I have. Life is a long thing, when starfish lose limbs, it’s usually just because they’re a little warm, it’s their small discarded sweater but when I get a little warm at night, my body shoved by invisible currents, I sit in the cavity of the couch eyes falling like stars from
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