The Words, May 2015
Wordplay
By Zoya Haroon ’15
This month’s issue of Wordplay features two poems by Aarohi Narain ’18, “Forensic Anthropologist” and “Untitled.”
Forensic Anthropologist
Tree-ring fingerprints
Intimate, coiled chronologies
Of what it means
To be human.
In this light,
Past transgressions surface
Your paper body becoming
An undone origami.
His Vedic kisses filled
Your mouth with mythology
Down your legs, the hymns dripped
Infidelity pooling at your feet
This, the test tube confessional
This, the faithless anatomy
Your bones speak
Of deceit and desire
But you are silenced now.
Under my touch
Forensic Anthropologist
Just this once:
Guiltlessly,
You gleam.
“A tourist in the cathedral of your silence. I am reverent for all the wrong reasons.”
-Esme Evans
Untitled
After Esme Evans
In the cathedral of your silence
Only the stained glass windows
Speak
Ungodly smatterings
Michelangelo weeps
For these colors
He cannot paint.
You are made of such violent light
But I seek the syllabic;
I seek a thing
To wrap my tongue around
Your body is the bread
I want to break
Shatter every tincture, every beam
Until you leak language
Untitled
Limbs wet
With words of certain sin
I am irreverent
For all the right reasons.