Divyasri Krishnan

Aubade as a middle finger

Like an astronaut i’m small. I’m tinee.
I fit well in these
little spaces. I slip thru
shallow cuts
n leave no blood.
Birdies n i get right along. They shiver
thru the air, part
it like a curtain. Neat. Me,
i split
the thing
like a wound.
When i learned 2 fly
i was 16.
Barely alive. My father
taught me heavy
hands = love. Pain
= how he drives the sin from me.
Hell. I’ve always
been flighty.
So my father hit me. Big
deal. grow up, he said
w his hands.
He wanted new body, new daughter.
grow up, meaning no child o’ mine
wants
this sapphic shit.
girls don’t
make good husbands.
poetry don’t pay the
bills. W his hands n
a mouthful o’ knives:
grow up.
So i did. Fucked a girl
in my sleep.
So many little spaces
to fit. grow up; now
i’m 70 feet tall.
I’m 10000 feet tall. I’m
in the mothafuckn strato-
sphere. I have sex w
angels, now, dad.
I’m so big nex’ 2 u
but i can hide
in the notches of their eyeteeth,
cupid’s bow, under
their tongues. Now i’m so
alive it
hurts. I eat meteors for lunch.
They taste like girls.
They taste like
the goddamn sun.

Divyasri Krishnan studies at Carnegie Mellon University. Her work appears in DIAGRAM, Muzzle Magazine, Annulet, Dunes Review, and elsewhere. Her work has further been recognized by the Best of the Net, Kenyon Review Writers Workshops, Periplus Collective, Pittsburgh Humanities Festival, and Palette Poetry.