“Who needs miracles!” he said.

“We are made of stardust,
that’s miracle enough for me.”

I thought
he feels wonder when he looks up at the night sky.

His heart, filled with longing,
knows where he came from,
what he will return to.

He died a month later

and I was glad for him.

Anki Sinha

Ours is a petty fight
with city and lights.

Such tiny shoulders to wrestle with,
and this simple kiss
lacks courage.

But here we can swagger
with brash wisdom–
so proud, so magnificent.

While jackhammers tear up the parking lot.
We find rubble in most things,
we stop at the edge, stay too long.

For it’s a wide-eyed old beauty, this,
a straight shot into mountains, this.

I could enter untouched with you
I could run this flood of tar, metal,
wires with you

Those birds will drop and rise with us.

We could
cut through dividing roads,
curse and
flicker with adventure
and the lust of aging conquerors.

Anki Sinha

What needs to be said
usually lies between the words
and the lines of each letter

the       in O

and the       in P

the     and the     in E

the     between “On Time“

Sort of like the space between each star

everything in nothing

Anki Sinha

We rent pale blue bicycles in St. Pete.

Thick and clumsy
with its weight, I lumber up Central Ave.
The wind feels cool on my face.

I stand on the pedals and
catch a glimpse of her long hair,
waving around a sharp turn.

I play the game of “I May Not See her Again,”
and pedal faster
to catch up.

I’m glad each time
I pull up beside her.

Anki Sinha

I was told that my dog was still with me.
She visits often, I was told.

I would see her in butterflies.

I was also told that she still runs wild
in a garden, the one behind the house
I used to live in. The one she played in —
heads of hydrangeas scattering in alarm
as she tore through them.

Out of all the things I was told,
that is the one I remember the most,
that, and the cold weight of her body
in my arms as she died.

I miss her.

But then again, there are butterflies,
so many of them.

Anki Sinha

sometimes my life
moves like poppies 
downhill

young when I was 
running behind private property
I ran thinking you followed behind
screamlaughing   legs   gallop

sang into the cane field below
I imagined you conjured there

breathless friend of thin air
and solitary companionship

Now growing up
we learn the struggle remains
from nothing to create possibilities
as rich as fields blooming,

make home and family
rise from debris

from these chance peculiarities
that we both, born different
and unimagined, glow like 

deep water anemones
making clearer for each other
the unexplored depth of our lives

what is not easy 
the partings that come
again and again, our lives
separating like countries have
farewells leaving 
uneven contours waiting
to be filled

Friend, sometime again
time            geography
will find space for us

a place for us to meet again.