They chop down trees / as easily as they would / hold a handkerchief / sprayed with chloroform / over mouths of our women / The blue veins / on our legs / carry the weight / of this world / tinctured like the sky / So they say / open / open / open wide / until you burst into rain / and die / Amid sounds of bullet-shots / I hallucinate / to see my grandmother / fill a vase / with sugarwater before she puts flowers into it / The aisles in this store / are narrow / a tragicomedy joke / no escape from land / into frozen glaciers / A window becomes / the shore for which you long / A supermarket / beholds the sight of a mortuary / where the undead / are paraded / Here our / amygdala processes / all colors / orange lime carpet-floor cream / Their guns pucker faces / dermatillomania of the skull / The sun moves / through a window that overlooks / a web of briars / A man tries to shoot / another man / escapes / and we see our shadows double / through the plexiglass / In the capillary / of this synthetic roof / our thalamus is dysfunctional / If freedom were a voice / we would have / mouths of fishes / The rust of blood / coagulates on tulips / kept for purchase / at the end of the door / near the fire alarm / Terror makes cowards of us all / but mostly makes cowards of those who terrorize / Therefore leave us all unharmed / Blood spirals into undulant hope / as the thick glass breaks / as day opens / once again / in front of our eyes / calling to escape.
Sneha Subramanian Kanta is a recipient of the GREAT scholarship and has earned a second postgraduate degree in literature from England. She is the founding editor of Parentheses Journal and the winner of the Uncommon Chapbook Series from Boston Accent Lit. She is the author of Synecdoche (The Poetry Annals, England) and Prosopopoeia (Ghost City Press, USA).