Straddling Chicago and Delhi, Tanima writes poetry, makes theatre, and sometimes works on a PhD. Previous and forthcoming writing can be found in Soundzine, Rise Up Review, Stone Poetry Quarterly, and Indent: The Body and the Performative.’ 

honey

winter dusks and the sky looks like diesel or dog piss

though he wakes up and says it’s just like honey honey and will you

take me on a joyride while the grown-ups talk? sticks his tongue

out to make me laugh as the doctors tell them to count

the days. looks out the window and says it must be beautiful

there. in two wool sweaters and a bobble hat wheel

him to the parking lot so honey’s the last

vast thing he’ll see apart from my fear. love remains

you know he says creaking forward in his chair to touch the still

warm concrete dividers in the afterlife looking up to liquid light

tying us into ribbons flooding gold our cheeks sticky with it.