Teja Sudhakar

Dogwood

They say a poem closes in on itself as it continues,
like a life. When I think college I think yellow
floorboards, $400 apartments, smoking upstairs,
kissing for fun. I think dogwoods, backyards, parks
in the middle of neighborhoods. I think the album cover
where a spiral widens between skeletons
of a mother and child. I see mother differently now, a daughter
in that house of orange tiles, watching her mother
lock each of the doors down the hallway
one by one. When I think Kentucky I think
parking lot, magnolia, a shadow getting larger as it descends
the fire escape. I think the music of thinking everyone
will be in your life forever. Windowsills with dark specks
harboring their corners, winter hands. This week my words
have been crawling in on themselves,
like they’re coming home. Like the house has
one long hallway, a pool of white lighting the center.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Teja Sudhakar is a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. A native of Chennai, India, and long-time resident of Lexington, Kentucky, their work explores queer and immigrant narratives of the transnational South. Teja’s work has been published with The Academy of American Poets, Georgia Review, Salt Hill Journal and others. They live and write in Riverwest, Milwaukee with their cat, Soup.