Golden
Aekta Khubchandani
You keep walking across a stream
of freshwater in your mind
and find him soaked in sun,
wet from light, feet underwater,
toes looking like glistened seashells
when you spot a goldfish from a trail
of bubbles. Whatever was happening
before you found him is not happening
anymore. Beneath the man, is a boy
five years old with a golden heart.
Anything that bright oversees other
things. Beneath the woman you are,
is a girl with a plain face frowning
at stars for being burning bodies
far from you. Light is a trick
you don’t like. Water this moment.
Pour water over your burnt hand;
the boy didn’t mean to hurt you.
Soften your hand in that freshwater stream.
Watch a bubble move above,
golden things are malleable—
Aekta Khubchandani, a writer from Bombay, is the founder of Poetry Plant Project where she conducts generative workshops. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. She is the winner of Breakout Prize 2022 in Poetry, a finalist for Indiana Review’s Poetry Prize 2022, and The Baltimore Review’s Winter Contest in Poetry. Her work is nominated for Pushcart Prize by Epiphany, Best of Net by Nurture Literary, Best Microfiction by Passages North, and Favorite Online Articles and Essays by Entropy. She has works published in Penn Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Speculative Nonfiction, VIDA, Jaggery, Kitaab Singapore, and elsewhere. She’s working on two books. Find her at @aekta.khubchandani on Instagram and @aekta_k on Twitter.
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