#waking days

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)