Transmigration
Ghosts threading space between animals.
Imagine: shoals of fish, a pod of whales,
a swarm of bodies around glacial heights
in kaolin snow. The velocity of clear-sky
precipitation increases with the glint of
shadows. Ghosts float between silence
and static with ammonites in their hands
blessing the way fossils metamorphosize.
The interference with light, an iridescence.
Ghosts unlatch the burials inside earth as
roots rising from its craters, skyward. It
smells like monsoon. Birds gravitating
toward wave-crests, flapping their wings
in ocean-mist, a beacon of sunlight tilts
through the water. The city plunges into
its reflection, every fragment becomes a
joint rhythm from a harmonium. Ghosts
bless the spell of light. A plume of dust
gathers rain. Ghost of sublime animals
in the rain. The granularity of bones in
a body. A forest with galaxies of moss.
—Sneha Subramanian Kanta
***
Sneha Subramanian Kanta has been awarded the first Vijay Nambisan fellowship. She is the Charles Wallace Fellow at The University of Stirling (2019). She is also the founding editor of Parentheses Journal and reader for Palette Poetry and Tinderbox Poetry Journal.
Used by permission of the poet. First appeared at SWWIM Every Day.
