are the blood of the evening.
In the sky, a child pokes a pencil through dark paper
and the wounds singe my eyes.
The window is a yawning mouth
and the breeze its soft tongue.
Sunlight and its rusting frame
cast a jail cell on the ceiling.
A purple glow sits on the tree.
Its branch is seared in half
from the blinking red needle of an aeroplane.
The yellows and oranges move quickly,
bend like a leaf into water.
Fluorescent bulbs hem
the seams of northern california
like ants burrowing on the hills.
In the sky, a cigarette dusts its ash
and breaks into sparkling bubbles of soap.
The moon blinks at them,
bleeding into the dark
like a swollen tooth
in a tired smile.
Divya Venkat Sridhar (she/her) is an Indian poet living in Switzerland. Her work has been published by the Poetry Society, Rattle Magazine, Zindabad Zine, and more. She was also a 2023 winner of the Guernsey International Poetry Competition. When she isn’t writing, you’ll find her making pasta, playing the saxophone, or singing the La La Land soundtrack (terribly).