#latitude

The Q train empty enough for vodka
lemonades, lurching through a morning
we can see out the window. O Luna Park,
mustard arcana, dystopic soap opera
in circus stripes!

In photos, our faces are panicked, though
we insist we are roundmouthed with joy.
Beneath the aquarium tunnel we kiss
with the urgency of those who know
what is about to happen. We eat clams
on the half shell, drink tequila in the dark,
have sex on the disreputable Ferris wheel.

Ours is the euphoria of finality. Here—
the last oyster on earth, dolloped with
mignonette. The last turnstile click
before the neon ballad expires. We bask
in the shrieks of the gloriously alive
beachgoers, thrill-seekers, foam moles
evading the mallet. 

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

My whole life
has been a festival
of light. Window seats
open blinds sun
syrup in a jar
with breakfast. Cold
blooded girl like
naked lizard on velvet
couch, waiting for muscles
to heat, become limber.
Everything feels
otherworldly
soaked in light, palms
lightly soaked. Yellow
ochre in the throat.
Slick wicks, small flame
in clay, bouquet
of burning oil. Shouting
with delight beneath
fireworks, bodies vibrating
like guitar strings plucked
to life—I have never
been any good at prayer
or worship, but my
God,
I believe in celebration.

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

We were softly enormous. Hooked on
lengthening light, healthy calves pedaling
to the trailhead. We knew everyone
in every grocery store. We knew the code
to the high school tennis shed. We learned
language for the world around us, dogwood,
larkspur, pointed to ants and said head,
thorax, abdomen, back when we imagined
the world narrow enough to name.
Squatting above our reflections, we filled
Ziploc bags with minnows, never
considered the ways a body might change
in its container. Last week in Brooklyn,
coming down or hungover, I floated
through the park with a friend. Magnolia
he said. I put my left foot in front of my right.
Gingko. Think of all the directions a life
can take. It’s true I love spooning pâté
and telling white lies, spinning while the first birds
blow their trumpets and the budding
world feels like mine again. I want wildness
anywhere I can find it, in flowerless hours, the city
a thicket of unnamable parts. I return to my corner
of girlhood shrunken, shocked by the crabapple’s
pink and the unapologetic dandelions, the way
they remind me of yesterday’s concentric world.
Throw a rock and the water will ripple further
from where it started, each ring bewildered
by the shape that came before.

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

In childhood she was magnificent, or she believed

herself to be. The deck was hedged with marigolds.

Tomatoes dangled boldly in the yard. At

four she spelled cornucopia for delighted adults,

not her first instance of pride, but the first

she would be able to remember. Hers was a youth

of ambition, round, ripe days overflowing

from a goat’s horn. If she felt lonely, it was only

because the color of blackberry juice made her swell

on the cusp of something unbearably profound,

for which she had no words. Gradually

she understood neither the world nor herself

were what she had imagined. Became a small

fleshy thing in a honking, angular place. Once,

sobering up in a hospital gown, she almost

recalled that nameless awe, so close

was her stain’s resemblance to that of some dark

fruit. So slippery her sense of being alive.

She learned how to make the city feel

like moving underwater, how to hold her breath.

Look at her now, in a room full of bankers, the way

she shrinks in fluorescent light, dwelling in the past

tense, those long bright hours when she still felt

conviction to chase the shimmering fish,

still recognized herself in their certitude,

their obvious forward motion toward

some nameable goal.

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

Returning from the airport I felt a sadness I thought
I couldn’t survive. The old motions sliced in half.
You no longer in the busy parking lot to quell to

laugh when I say what the fuck which way how do I
and it sounds frightening coming out of my mouth
in an empty car. My voice an unpaved road. We spent

the whole summer driving, lucid dreaming with music
and colors in slow blur. Alone I do everything
with nervous as prefix, but with you I took those bends

blissfully. So many years living beside the twisting road
and we never got used to the word roadkill,
the flippancy of it. You grab my arm at the unfurled

intestine and just like that I become the big sister
again, rolling up the windows and maneuvering
the curves. It’s okay. You can look now. Look—

your existence was the best thing that happened
to me. Come back across the phone, the ocean
come back across the hall where I am growing old

waiting for you, pass me the keys and we will feel
alive again. In the almost-world where you sit shotgun,
the deer still has its spots. We saw it coming.

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

IX.

Bonfire Night. The crags of Arthur’s Seat. Months before, I watched my mother pray at the foot of her bed, knowing it was for me. Hazelnut wafers. A thin, oily, gravy ladled onto my plate. What I loved most was the color of the city. No, what I loved most was the person I could be. In her letter my friend described: a happiness unsurprising and as expected as air, not a frightening burst of euphoria that will leave you dull and still after it is gone. Steeple and stone. A soft amplitude of rain. In this version of reincarnation I can remember all my lives.

Natasha Rao, from “Latitude,” Latitude (Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

V.

Newly blueberried air. A man said percolating underneath the full moon and walked me to my car with a calculable expression. To stand in front of the brook in total darkness. To be convinced of something you can’t see. While he tried unsuccessfully to open the bottle of wine, I felt tenderness but disappointment, a sadness for us both, the inevitability of after the affair when we slip back into our ingrained lives. I motioned for the corkscrew. He mentioned God. I was surprised, given the scandalous nature of the evening, how predictable it all was. Except for the wet grass in the meadow which was, somehow, unimaginable. 

Natasha Rao, from “Latitude,” Latitude (Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

III.

Weekends I went to the park and said aww at passing dogs. Not knowing the names of breeds the way my white friends did, I sat in an embarrassed silence while they discussed their preferences for Dachshunds and Dobermans. I knew the names of plants and trees and constellations but kept this to myself, could never sit in a white circle and change the color of conversation. What I liked was sitting in the passenger seat while a capable person found a place to pull over. The hyperbolic shooting stars. I marveled at heaven and the person and felt lucky I had found them, their unabashed turn signals and disregard for trespassing signs. I was light and fearless by proxy. The next morning we drove further into the park and, like a small, round pebble, a noise slipped from my mouth when I saw the geyser surge. The same mineraled gasp the first time I felt a man erupt inside me. All that giddy bubbling. Grand prismatic. Oh. It’s so unearthly here on earth.

Natasha Rao, from “Latitude,” Latitude (Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

I.

Back then I was committed to the color blue, felt moved to paint my walls, nails, furniture the same shade of teal. Now my body swells at the window with casual longing. Do you believe in saltwater gargling. As a cure. At the gas station I felt proud to specify it was the navy lighter we wanted. Often the bravest thing I do all day is open my mouth. On every beach washes up the memory of some other beach when I didn’t evaluate my own body. Last night Orion’s Belt filled me with dread because everyone I have shown it to has exited my life with no warning. Still, I couldn’t help myself. The light was brief and obvious.

Natasha Rao, from “Latitude,” Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

These days everyone is moving away, folding flaps of the past
into boxes. If the house goes, I think, so, too, does the feeling.
Each time it is the same, a few martinis in the city and I dream
of clementines huddled inside the net. Black-eyed Susans
and all those trails unwalked. In the bathroom I swallow
or snort that loaded syllable home. My tired teeth in the mirror.

My brother lives in another country. My parents left
the country in which they were born. Somehow I am tethered
to this place, the fading grass, all the left turns I built up
the courage to make. No—most days I wake and ache
to leave this continent, this time, this body. I stay from fear.
Those were the lightest years. If I go, so, too, does the feeling.

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

This city disintegrates into fat flakes and spills
a billowing silence over crooked branches
of birch, bowtied bags, an ambulance. The grid
exhales. Times Square in dress rehearsal
practices its celebration for a new decade knee
deep in confetti. The countdown could be
for a departed era, the way snow trembles around
brass lamps, wind unbraiding a woman’s hair.
The city is a forest, a village, an empty cathedral.
It is almost impossible to believe in the yellow-
lit tunnels of trumpets beneath my feet,
a damp and relentless scurrying. New York
is layered with dens. Roofs keep hidden
the secret of bats, their dark bickering elbows,
and below the sink, mice take precise bites
of white bread. In my own nest I spread a buttery
light and drink red wine assiduously. I desire
velvet and lace, oysters in June but pearls
in December, silk, warm milk, the low notes
of a bassoon through the window before
my thick, ursine sleep. I will wake only in time
for flakes to become white butterflies feasting
on the first fleecy buds while I fix my fur,
hungry once more to see the city reflected
in your eyes, those dark, glimmering berries.

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

wet leaves and the deer that eat them

milkweed pods

wild, untrimmed light

-

rotting pulpous pears

mushrooms in maple shadow

-

a day is like any other until you remember

what other days are like

-

freckled feathers

bats beneath a slate roof

the slick throbbing worm

-

silly me
i am singing of beauty again

under burning rain
in the poisoned forest
i can’t help but open my deciduous mouth

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

A cul-de-sac of televisions
switched to the same channel.
Overhead, the bleating of geese.
Attention, these days, is held
for a brief moment, the way
I might hold onions
at the market. I watch the stock
simmer on the stove. I gather,
refresh, then trade
the screen for the window,
where snow is falling decisively
in the same direction. Look
away, look back, it’s already done.
I fling wide the door to feel
which way the wind is moving,
barely open my mouth before
a new species of bird evolves
and fills the air
with uncountable versions
of the freshest song.

Natasha Rao, Latitude (Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

lusting and unafraid. In this bipedal incarnation
I have always been scared of my own ripening,
mother standing outside the fitting room door.
I only become bright after Bloody Mary’s, only whole
in New Jersey summers where beefsteaks, like baubles,
sag in the yard, where we pass down heirlooms
in thin paper envelopes and I tend barefoot to a garden
that snakes with desire, unashamed to coil and spread.
Cherry Falls, Brandywine, Sweet Apertif, I kneel
after last night’s thunderstorm only to find more
sprawl, the tomatoes have no fear of wind and water,
they gain power from the lightning, while I, in this version
of life, retreat in bed to wither. In this life, rabbits
are afraid of my clumsy gait. In the next, let them come
willingly to nibble my lowest limbs, my outstretched
arm always offering something sweet. I want to return
from reincarnation’s spin covered in dirt and
buds. I want to be unabashed, audacious, to gobble
space, to blush deeper each day in the sun, knowing
I’ll end up in an eager mouth. An overly ripe tomato
will begin sprouting, so excited it is for more life,
so intent to be part of this world, trellising wildly.
For every time in this life I have thought of dying, let me
yield that much fruit in my next, skeleton drooping
under the weight of my own vivacity as I spread to take
more of this air, this fencepost, this forgiving light.

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

Tonight I am remembering
the Krishna-skin
skies of summer
& the way your laugh
made a Jacaranda tree bloom.
We slept in sheets the color of seaglass &
I woke with the taste of salt
in my mouth.
Happiness is devastating
in the past tense.
I lay these memories, like a fish,
on the cutting board.
Slice them open &
the deepest blue
spills onto this poem.

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)

Backward crossovers into years before: airy
afternoons licking the wooden spoon, pouring soft blades
of grass from a shoe, all ways of saying I miss
my mother. I wish I could remember the gentle lilt
of my brother’s early voice. Instead I hear clearly
the dripping of a basalt fountain. What gets saved—

My father fed my sick goldfish a frozen pea and it lived
for another six years. Outside, pears swathed in socks
ripened, protected from birds. Those bulbous
multicolored days, I felt safe before I knew
the word for it. But how to fossilize a feeling, sustain it
in amber? I keep dreaming in reverse until I reach
a quiet expanse of forest. The dragonflies are large
and prehistoric. Mother watches from a distance
as I move wildly, without fear.

Natasha Rao, Latitude(Copper Canyon Press, 2021)