Transmigration

by Sneha Subramanian Kanta

Ghosts threading space between animals.
Imagine: shoals of fish, a pod of whales,
a swarm of bodies around glacial heights

in kaolin snow. The velocity of clear-sky
precipitation increases with the glint of
shadows. Ghosts float between silence

and static with ammonites in their hands
blessing the way fossils metamorphosize.
The interference with light, an iridescence.

Ghosts unlatch the burials inside earth as
roots rising from its craters, skyward. It
smells like monsoon. Birds gravitating

toward wave-crests, flapping their wings
in ocean-mist, a beacon of sunlight tilts
through the water. The city plunges into

its reflection, every fragment becomes a
joint rhythm from a harmonium. Ghosts
bless the spell of light. A plume of dust

gathers rain. Ghost of sublime animals
in the rain. The granularity of bones in
a body. A forest with galaxies of moss.

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Sneha Subramanian Kanta is a recipient of The Charles Wallace Fellowship at the University of Stirling (2019). A GREAT scholarship awardee, she has earned her second postgraduate degree in literature from England. Her work is forthcoming in The Normal School, Waxwing Magazine, Quiddity, The Puritan, and elsewhere. She is the founding editor of Parentheses Journal, and reader for Palette Poetry and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. She is the author of Land: Bone / Ocean: Muscle (forthcoming with dancing girl press).