the sun rises
BY JASMIN KAUR
& israel drags his feet across gaza’s chest.
settles across her skin & waits empty-eyed for
it to tear
& a white man sits atop amerikkka & calls
brown skin a furnace. says that we consume
each other in smoke & flame. that it is better
we burn each other to ash than intrude on his
property
& a cop in punjab empties out a cartridge.
cleans it out in a young singh’s body & names
it necessity. decides to side with a system that
puts food on the table & bodies in rivers
& a woman floats in space. stares at the earth
as the sun cowers behind it. watches existence
light up in twinkling cities & villages. wishes
humanity could step back to stare at itself.
Excerpt from When You Ask Me Where I’m Going (HarperCollins, 2019)
The Eyes I Chose
BY JASMIN KAUR
soft because none of us are the same people we
were five or ten or two years ago. soft because
peonies exist. soft because my plants managed to
persist patiently waiting for water. soft because i
know what it is to not want to wake up in the
morning. soft because there is a bloodhound
somewhere who has befriended a duckling. soft
because he thinks the duckling is a puppy. soft
because i carry four losses inside my chest–one
for each cavity of my heart. soft because i’m
running out of cavities. soft because i’ve been
hard on myself for so long. soft because i don’t
know what you’re carrying. soft because i don’t
know how much more weight will cause it all to
fall through your arms. soft because we’re both
human. soft because coral melted into gold at
dawn. soft because i want you to still be here in
the morning.