Natasha Kochicheril Moni

At the Elles Exhibit, We Find Ourselves Adjacent

Seattle Art Museum, 2012

We aren’t the women exposed, wads of Juicy
Fruit plied across every obvious crevasse 

nor are we the exposé, a liberated country
of limbs, nude and flexing for release 

but an avenue of tea
we might have inherited 

between this
and the silver boat 

a gaggle of gloves
ready for propulsion.

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Natasha Kochicheril Moni is a first-generation American of Indian and Dutch descent. An award-winning author of four published poetry collections, Natasha’s writing has been featured in 75 literary magazines including Entropy, Verse, Magma, Asian American Writers' Workshop and The Rumpus. In 2024, her creative nonfiction was selected by Jill Christman as a runner-up for Sweet Lit's Flash Essay competition. A former Jack Straw writing fellow, Hedgebrook resident and recipient of Artist Trust, Puffin and Tufts grants, Natasha is working on two nonfiction collections.