Issue 33: Aishwarya Iyer

stone in the afternoon

the afternoon stone on the road

by tree, bush, bramble,

blood and seed,

stays where shadows hover

I walk past, I hear nothing

I tear at the air

  and the bird passes

steel rods iron rods arraign the dull noon

the world emerges again

as shadow from stone

my heel presses upon gravel

the stone sits in the open

on the side of the road

such shadows combine

that a second sky adheres  

where the stone sits

I walked past, I raised dust

the bird’s wonderment

is in my passing

the stone remains

as I pass

stone of tar-scree

exile of stone-kind

your eyeless gaze

follows me

in the shade of heaving trees

the stone and walker

wear out the afternoon

Threshold

A greater longing wrestles

amid the trees, disappearing light

hums, flapping wings wake

The evening is mercy: water

pouring out of time

  Harness loosened,

the grasses are beaming

but the stones await the night-glass

The dirty cow is still

as an iron yoke in some field

Who has passed? Who cries?

Who waits in the shade without a face?

Who sings?

Bricks tear out of the building's facade

And cement patches glow

like icons

Aishwarya Iyer has written a book of poems, The Grasp of Things (Copper Coin/Sublunary Editions, 2023). Her poems, short stories and critical prose have appeared in journals such as The Bombay Literary Magazine, Humanities Underground, Almost Island, ASAP Art, Muse India, Pratik, Berfrois, Firmament and Poetry at Sangam, among others. Her drawings have appeared most recently in Hakara. She's visiting the University of Kent as the Charles Wallace Writing Fellow in Spring 2025.

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