Coriolis

Coriolis 1920 1229 Anindita Sengupta

Water spirals clockwise or not depending on hemisphere
This too is rumor. Like home, like country.
Mythology is rife with images of exile — serpent of fire
gorging wax, palace aflame like a tree in bloom.
This should be easy because it’s timeless.
We hold hands, smokeless as cordite, clueless as bacteria
on their way to Mars. An experiment for the future.
          Trajectory of ocean light. The day is a stopwatch, a plosion.
At the counter, a girl is denied her visa and keels over.
We live on a notion of arrival. Ibuprofen and some
chanting. We’re slogans in Times Square. We’re a spoken word fest
with no audience. Let stars guide you, let Bethlehem or Mecca
or whatever finds you holy: trinity of food, cigarettes and rum,
the begrimed faces of your children. In the dark, salamanders slide
to their pools, the blue of their spots sparkles across the earth
and later, the pools vanish into air, and there is love even in this,
even in this.

Header photography by Andrew Hall

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