Koi Maach by Shaoni Rakshit

whatever streaming shoal you find / the pond always dries up / there’s only so much of

summer left / in the banks / my grandfather saw a fish climb a tree / on his errand run /

some things are more mystical said out loud

i would pray to a god if it danced for me / i stood by the pier so piously / why won’t he

arrive / the koi ruminated in the water until they wore out / the artistry of a memory is in the

fact / it keeps flowing

the lip of the lake is parched with earth now / but i still see the water / under the dying two

thousand five sun / most of these things are not past tense yet / everybody in this story is

still alive.

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Shaoni Rakshit was born on an island country, spent fourteen years in an ex-archipelago, and currently lives in a port city. Her writing has been published in The Alipore Post, Ramona Magazine, sea foam mag, Visual Verse, as well as in a poetry anthology called ‘A Letter, A Poem, A Home’, available on Amazon. Find Shaoni on Instagram (@shaonirak) and on X (@shayisonx).