Shinjini Bhattacharjee: BEGINNING • Cleaver Magazine

Shinjini Bhattacharjee
BEGINNING

All the fruits bursting
with prophecies without
an easy way through the
branches of apricot tree.
Outside, the snow crowded
to drown the lives. My hands
a wet door that could never
hope for the faith of miracles.

Yet, my lips quickened into
prayer, the tongue dipped on
on the satin roof of the mouth.
The owls leaned into the

solid flesh of the sky,
carved a new daylight
so we could yarn the day
with eggs, leaves and

browning fruits. My
mother knew where my
shoulder tilted, so she
could separate hers from

mine. The magic of being
a firstborn is cold and
carries three false words.
A lone body frightens death.

Sometimes, there’s something
wrong with the ground. Then,
the only way we sit still is by
falling through unconditionally.

Shinjini Bhattacharjee’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Bitter Oleander, Cimarron Review, Superstition Review, Gargoyle, A-Minor, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She is the author of two chapbooks: ‘There is No Way to Alter the Gravity for a Doll’ (dancing girl press, 2016) and ‘In My Landscape, I Am Not Real’ (Glass Lyre Press, 2018), and serves as the founding editor of Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal and Press. Read more at her website www.shinjinibhattacharjee.com.