Sunday morning &
already a boy was dragged
away in a rip tide.
The lake rose up &
the city sent horns & lights
to illuminate
his floating blue.
Someone was killed on this corner
last night. We heard the shots
& looked at each other
but said nothing. M barked
for a little
then stopped.
This morning, everything parched:
the silver maple, the concrete
hot at 6:00am
no shells but yellow
caution tape blooming out
of the garbage can.
Humidity is over 80% & we sweat
til midnight talking
about war.
Two nights ago I dreamt myself
sinking in a growing lake
water at my neck &
our building tumbling
into its arms.
This is how we relearn
summer
the name of each
poisonous flower.
Nisha Atalie is a mixed poet of South Asian and European descent from the Pacific Northwest. She is a poetry editor at MASKS literary magazine and her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Blood Orange Review, The Hunger, Tinderbox Poetry, Breakwater Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the 2021 Eileen Lannan Poetry Prize.