Sharanya to the Poet: A Cento by Sanchari Sur

And although my past is cluttered
I have placed a carnation beside each of your knives,
my own heart gaping open, mined.

Though the fields are parched, my heart has its harvest.

Day parts like a curtain. My changeling,
I portmanteaued my life and waited
so that the hooks in your mouth
come without your weapons of slaughter.

You slid a pin into my body and
somewhere along this trail is
the darkness you found me in.

My heart is a cactus,
the rock of my heart, igneous with pain.

And so I wear a dress the colour of a hibiscus behind one ear.

Soon, it will be the season of wasps
capable of encapsulating the sea.

I will love you against prophecy.

In another life, you knew me
assister.

Source(s): Lines were taken from Sharanya Manivannan’s poems.

From Volume 3
Selected by Jasmine Gui, Managing Editor