ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Diya Chaudhuri earned her B.A. at Emory University and is currently in the M.F.A. program at the University of Florida. Her poems have most recently appeared online at elimae, Stirring, and anderbo, and are forthcoming in Harpur Palate, Sugar House Review, Redivider, and Zoland Poetry, among others.
If I could write a dance into this riot, press grace
into these scabrous, clutching hands, if I could
ease peace into these eyes, rolling, bovine, if I
could pluck a harmony from these gritty cries, coarse
as they are, tease the blush of a bride’s carmine cheek
from these blood and mud plashes, if I could hold a finger
to this wind and call it good-natured, if I could ignore
the way metal shivers through the air before it chances
on this snug flesh, if I could suffer it all and endure
the whole of it, know each of you through a light touch…
Published July 2010