2 poems by Jayant Kashyap

Bloom

‘But then the blueness of harebells

Was all I wanted to behold’

— Michael Longley, Dorothy Molloy

As kids we used to love oleanders—white, yellow,

blue; the waxy glint of petals—perhaps because they were

at a height only the grownups could reach and we

wanted to, too. Once one of us brought an oleander

seed to plant for years later—for when we grew up.

As we grew up, gradually, we fell for harebells and blue-

bells instead—witch’s flowers; fields of which owls swoop

over at night—heads bowed, their bodies ever closer

to the earth.

Blue

—and Adam

looked at her looking

at a glacier, and that was the first time they had

seen one:

slight, / slithering,

swift / and slow at once;

*

and, from this distance, blue

and white and blue—

______________

Jayant Kashyap is the author of three poetry pamphlets, most recently Notes on Burials,

which won the New Poets Prize in 2024. He has also published a zine, Water (Skear Zines, 2021), and was a recipient of a Toto Award in 2025.