Longer Holiday Lists
Gathering twigs to make a tree
homes to make a train
trills to make it sing
enough water to make pine
need a hand
enough sunburns to brown
longing in
taming seas to slow a flake
sealskins
to make a woman
distance throwing things
into relief
into restless assumptions
of distance
pulsing apart
into Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut
at the door
gull-grey refrigerators proffer
her wet palm a blue vein spider
still looking for a cove
in ageing
wine sill softer days
the A/C still dripping
in drops the radius
of longing
in holiday lists
About the poet:
Rahana K Ismail is a left-hander, a poet, and a doctor from Calicut, Kerala. Her work has been featured in nether Quarterly, Usawa Review, Verse of Silence, EKL Review, the Chakkar, and elsewhere. She gets lost in trails of bird seeds, a lack of snow-sprites, and wintering thoughts. For her, winter is a box or many asymptotic lines longing for an end. You can find her on Instagram @ra.ha.na.k.ismail