2 Poems by Shira Sanghvi
Poem Beginning with a Line by Kasia Van Schaik
A burial at sea must be approved by the authorities. But I want you to slide me in—they won't have me removed. Just plop my body in that turquoise blue expanse, and watch as I make my descent. I'll drift down, dropping league by league, through schools of butterflyfish, finally content, my fingers pruned. Degraded molecules will dance ‘til bonds—my cells—disintegrate. What's left of our shared DNA will rise up to the surface just like people bait. It will lure you down there to your demise so that the two of us can float beside each other. We will be one with the tide. (Italicized words from “Germany” in Sea Burial Laws According to Country [2018])
Sonnet?
what more is there to say? how would things be if you’d not fibbed, if i'd known your true name and age, if you’d not hoodwinked teenage me? when it went down, did you feel any shame? did you pull out your poorly bleached hair, stressed? were you a salmon stuck in a net, caught? did your blood freeze beneath your tattooed chest? did you feel panic? were you overwrought? what would my life be like if i’d kept it? it will remain an it forever, right? do you still think about all of this shit? what can i do when all i feel is spite? do you know that you set my life afire? how did i let this whole affair transpire?
Shira Sanghvi grew up in Oakland, California on Ohlone land and now resides on the territory of the Musqueam people, where she studies geography and creative writing at the University of British Columbia. She loves loud music, origami, and pani puri.
Anna Pineda is an illustrator and mixed media artist from Southern California. They received their Bachelors in Studio Art at California State University, Long Beach, and have worked in technology and art throughout Los Angeles County. Their work has been cultivated through testing the limitations of specific mediums while keeping its content on visual human expression as well as familiar objects through free associative drawing. Check out Anna’s online portfolio or follow them on Instagram @a.spieql.