By Jaya Tripathi

this cheery fever feels
like a temporary insanity         I was safer
in the country of control         doling out small pleasures
to myself          like a wily jailer            like a loosie peddler
like a guppy’s sphincter           this morning
I washed tiny newborn bloomers          there were no fates
scuttling in the washing machine          no sheep livers
on the drying rack                     later in the shower when I felt her
moving like a bag of cats           between my hip bone
and my heart              I painted a cobweb of Silly String
around my fat belly   cupped my veiny breasts
and crowed     not long ago I grew my certainty
fresh every day like a liver       asked the doctors to look deep
at the pieces of my child sparkling in my blood
her stars            her tattoo      I hummed a boy scout
is always prepared        my daughter heard me
through my navel and laughed                lying
slathered in aspic I clutched at every skeletal preview
each glimpse of augury             fading too fast
a stick of incense on a dark stair           I always wanted
to be a mother but I thought I’d be
an armory          a phalanx        her stillsuit
in a gray shitty world                 instead
I see her hiccup on a monitor
and I break open into sunshine
completely

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Jaya Tripathi has worked as an actor and as a human rights documentation expert. She is a student at The Writers Studio and splits her time between New York and Virginia.