Today's poem is by Shalini Rana

Unsent Message to My Brother in His Pain
        After Leon Stokesbury & Mary Angelino

Yesterday, a cloud-shaped orb muscled
in through the window & your eyes
ripped a clear song: the orb is just a sideshow,
prepare for my exit. In your face I saw possibilities
of sleep, then sheets of storm. Did you hear me
whisper a sky in your seashell ear?
Listen, elephants cry like we do
& it's someone's job to catch
their tears, someone else's to study them
for treatments of disease—the fresher
the sadness, the more it can cure. Look,
if you decide to stay, I won't pull the fat
from your cheeks when you're asleep or puppet
your mouth into moving. Stay with me
awhile. We'll eat idli from the blossoms
of our hands, & when we're finished
I'll fashion my lap into a poem, let your oblong
words rest there, like a heavy head.

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Copyright © 2023 Shalini Rana All rights reserved
from Salt Hill
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission