in the crosshatch of sand and sky

by Rekha Valliappan

a clap, rapid cloudburst

a soundboard runoff

draining discord

litter of summera

buried in topsoil – 

seeds shuffle

unapologetic aperture

of mud marbled dust

beneath the shape of

sun-stoned days 

basking yellow

chance mellows,

change, charcuterie,

collards, capsicums,

cracked, caked,

ochre-ing season’s loom

fermented to fullness

the stitch starts over

bilious boards 

crushed in bloat;

the devastated dead 

which sleep, stagnate, 

do not lie

swept into vacuum

of sand and sky

do not die

this moist earth hums

gashing gagging

its spectral shimmers

loud return on the longer trek

of crumbling axials

while low flecks of sky

tilted scatter  

granules of grain

encircling an aged orb

it’s a scan, it’s spam,

solar flux triangled in

old ephemera of

a beginning with no end

tentative threads

strewn all around

paralleled with a once was

that never paused

– ages – ageless

Rekha Valliappan is an award-winning multi-genre writer of short stories, poetry and creative nonfiction. Her poems and prose-poems feature in various journals and anthologies including Press 53 / Prime Number Magazine, The Pangolin Review, The Wild Word, Small Orange Poetry Journal, The London Reader, and other places. Her poem 'The Ghostly Luna' was Poem of the Week in Red Fez. Her poem 'Sakura' earned her a Pushcart Prize nomination from Liquid Imagination.