Nora Gupta: ELEGY WITH SALTWATER PEARLS • Poetry

Poetry by Nora Gupta
ELEGY WITH SALTWATER PEARLS

I track my body through snow

brimming with sweat, tears, the eternal glow

of tobacco and ash, an unfinished stub

melting its way into the ground. Inside, succumbed

to hospice, you wrap bony arms around my neck.

Gold sparks rushed down my back, my body’s way

of knowing this would be the last time.

February’s 6pm sunset bites

frozen poppies into my cheeks. I spray

rose hips & hibiscus in every room, but they wilt, even

the dripping pastels claiming my fingertips. The sunset

melting into its bowl of mint chip

is an unfair fight—until only the frost-tipped spoon

remains. Without the sweet, I have only

brown paper bags, compost feed to grieve. I miss

the monarchs we spent whole summer afternoons

watching through the milkweed. They helped me

escape what we knew.

In my bag, I still have

your papaya mango lip scrub. My palms rub honey

into my lemon skin. You never got to see

the glow of your bracelet beads looping

luminescence on my wrist. My vows

of devotion hang from my ears. Saltwater

pearls, Purple Tahitians. They’re imperfect—the foam

of fate like seafoam clouding their centers, but they flake

the never-ending Chilean coastal landscape. More

importantly, they’re ours.

Nora Gupta is a student poet at the Bronx High School of Science. Her poems have appeared in Cream City Review, Girls Right the World, Glassworks, Normal School, Notre Dame Review, Shō Poetry Journal, The Spotlong Review, Zone 3, and elsewhere. Her poetry and prose have received additional recognition by the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the National YoungArts Foundation, Princeton University, Gannon University, and Smith College, among others. Nora is also the editor-in-chief of Double Yolk, a publication featuring poets of color that shines a light on their creative processes. She lives in Queens, New York.