s e r e n a    c h o p r a

 

from Cheap Data
 

In the home…


When I look up…








































 
 

In the home where we are quiet as cloth, where the skull bends better than jaws

The season turns to labor, the weather lifts my dress



Contagious answer
West as cactus



If you have come by way of mad circus
If you are made to reckon cruelty is fathoms
Spared that one face is nearly more mirrors
If even a texture emancipates
The meat of a palm the knuckle meat of a palm
If holes in the wall remind you
of the nails crook in your throat

next








































 
 

When I look up from the phone, the deer
Has disappeared. Time reminds me of the pasture
I took the road down, and I am thinking of all the ways
One turns antique. Of course there is rust, but I am
Thinking more about growing apart
From the mind like
If the street becomes a river, the house still
Is not a raft and the storm peels away
To some other city’s matter, toothy metal run

next

SERENA CHOPRA is the author of This Human (Coconut 20130 and Ic (Horse Less Press, 2016) and the chapbook, Penumbra (Flying Guillotine, 2010). She is a doctorate candidate at the University of Denver in Creative Writing as well as a dancer with Evolving Doors Dance and a visual artist. She was a 2011-2013 resident artist at RedLine Gallery and is a co-founder and actor in the poet's theater group GASP. She currently teaches at Naropa University and the University of Denver. Her very first journal publication was in Alice Blue in 2007 and she is honored to be a part of this epic edition.


in issue eight

I S S N     1 5 5 9 - 6 5 6 7