When my body reaches for & does
not arrive, my girlfriends hold

me as their own in a portico
of light welding into possibility.

One is young. we sleep with string
on a small bed like siblings.

One has a heart like a canoe & a
house with a constricted staircase.

I creak down in the mornings
to find her with tea, readying

the toast to hold together the day.
One is older & knows how to leave

a place without guilt, trusts me
with a canvas & paint: there is nothing

wrong you can do. When telling a vein
from an illusion, a jacaranda from

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a stub is beyond my powers, this is
their work: to lift a dropped stitch,

to move the needle tediously forward,
looping detail in yarn till I am ready.

Published with permission.

This selection is curated by Yamini Krishnan.