‘The children are dying / Is there anything else worth knowing?’: Poems from a book by new poets

Alone Together

by Anjani Raj

I am connected
to millions of people
Like a sardine in a shoal.
All go the same way
Into a boxed can

Gold

by Archana Nair

There is something I hate about this metal – gold.

The way the chain sits on my collarbone,
glinting brighter than my skin,
reminding me of my skin colour that’s unacceptable to my mother.
The chain ends in a heavy locket,
one of the many uncooperative gods pricking my collar.

The earrings that my earholes can barely stand
fat jumkis punctures my earlobes,
hang loosely like ripe grapes, ready to be plucked.
A nerve that goes to my brain has paused on the way,
one tuck and there shall be blood.

The iron shackles like bangles around my wrist,
that took two sisters and a mother to soap and slide on.
My sisters also have tickets booked for this fate.
The heavy ancestral rubies cut my hands each time,
I press into the blood, hands folded and back straight.

I am put on display on the living room sofa,
among chitter chatter for a family of thirteen,
with the potential buyer, rich this time, I am told.
I peek through my kohled eyes, hiding fear and acting shy.
I see another pair of eyes that always rest on the gold.

The Giant Sleeps (Peacefully) In Zhongnanhai

By Lara C Caldwell

I will tell you the real story of Goliath. The only one that is true.

The stone grazed his left jaw. And if he fell (because this is disputed), it was only for a...

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