AKSHI CHADHA
Self-Portrait for Ally from the Dorm
like the glass-eyed fish / comes up to swallow a floating crumb / ends up with a hooked operculum / say you can acquire culture from the Disney Channel / like you can discover race via sitcoms / there is still a lot to learn / about Advent and Lent Jesus / about what exactly went down at Jerusalem / about evasive tongues / my inability to say the word fuck / at a party game for horrible people / like soaked almonds / lose crunch / the emphases unsettling / like someone revolutionizing my name / sanctioned in a conservatory / whetted brain / built from reading books that came on a vessel / a vessel I boarded to tail the gospels to the source / a misshapen key lodged under my tongue / the embellishment cracked / at dawn and Innatism / because I wasn’t born playing / Cards Against Humanity
Akshi Chadha is a writer and literary editor. She is currently pursuing an MA in Creative writing at the University of Toronto. She is the recipient of the 2021 Alfred Poynt Award in Poetry. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Parentheses, The Roadrunner Review, Watch Your Head, and Occasus. You can find out more about her work at akshichadha.com.