a triptych
I.
The fear of Death was spoon-fed to me—
the drear of black velvet drapes
over glossy wood coffins, heartbeats swallowed
but never digested. Instead, I was
haunted by the wandering ghost of a question—
What does it mean when your flesh turns
pale and your chest beats with only late autumn
bare branches? They say Death is ugly,
for the frail—filled with hoarse cries, clammy
clenched fists, holding a god who looks up
with disdain. Still, she lived to
explore the bills of toucans and frost
the tips of mountains, and I bet her funeral will tickle
the church floors as they creak with abandonment, as we steep
in the liquor of mourning. I bet the pews will even soften
to splintering maple, poking through mauve
carpet—long faded, exposing patches of what's beneath.
II.
The last time I went to church, the harp strings trembled
as the thurible swung like a brass pendulum. Sweet
smoke rose into the air with desperate prayer, icicles
dripping across the evening’s stained glass light. I watched
orange and blue and red sting my breath as the deep
granite pillars reached through clouds to touch Heaven
with the holy molasses of song—yet as we sung, we descended
into remorse, devotion. She was silent.
III.
At the funeral, Death was the only one
who looked pretty in black, her laughter looping
through the hearth’s crackling tinder. And after
I confessed to the delirious sky, my amber fists—
clammy and clenched, nails digging into
God, soaked in the sweat of anguish—
I felt your heartbeat unfasten like a tooth
from the church’s mouth. Swallowed
but never digested.
Nora Gupta is a student poet at the Bronx High School of Science. Her poems have appeared in Girls Right the World, Glassworks, 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 for Double Yolk, a publication featuring poets of color that shines a light on their creative processes. She lives in Queens, New York.
Photo credit: Pavel Danilyuk