Katie Hughbanks, Hibiscus Blood

jhilam chattaraj

crepe Myrtle

Rows of crepe myrtle; 
too white, too indulged 

stun the Departure Lounge.
I see an old radiance.

I also see Ma. 
Head down, she leaves in a white cab.

Small-town airports
make small things possible.

Seasons don’t shift here —
though somewhere a metropolis sinks in water.  

I soar upwards on metal wings—
dream of an animated girl

waiting for myrtles in the rain.
Pink, white, puffed dreams; 

crevices filled with water-nymphs.
Friends in school, called them

‘ice cream flowers’. 
Oh, for a cone full of sweet myrtle!

Twenty years ago, I left home.
But I did not leave this body—

the child who lives 
among sensual resonances.

I plunge earthwards.
Behind closed lids — a churn of myrtle ‘reels’.

A smile falls on my face and I believe —
I am not as old as the internet wants me to be.

Lightness — memories of flowers —
the only silver for days of soft thunder.  



__________

About the author

Jhilam Chattaraj is an academic and poet based in Hyderabad, India. Her works have appeared in Calyx, One Art, New Contrast, South Florida Poetry Journal, Ariel, Room, Porridge, Not Very Quiet, Queen Mob’s Tea House, Colorado Review, World Literature Today, and Asian Cha, among others.