Soon you’ll see swans turn black with time,
          how their legs lengthen as their necks shrink.
Allow them to trot on a countertop pecking
          for crumbs. And when you lose the key
to the antique cabinet hidden in your garage,
          imagine that what’s inside is a sideways mirror,
a leafing foxglove, a witch that burns blue
          in the heat. Your brief unpleasant history. Recall
the wayward bicycles on the street, callused tires
          that barely touched the ground in their haste.
A strange riddle: forgetting as a way of being
          in the world. You can conduct rock operas
from driveways, try your hand at invisible drums,
          but you can’t help but lose sight of yourself
in the puddles. Only you and the chameleons
          nesting on the back of your car. The cabinet left
colorless, stony as a swan. And now you watch your hair
          fall away from you in petals like the day.
The foxglove is gentle when it twists in the blade.

“Movement Therapy” first appeared on our website on March 22, 2021. It will subsequently appear in Meridian Issue 45.

About Post Author

Leela Srinivasan

Leela Srinivasan is a poet and MFA student at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. Originally from the Jersey Shore, she holds a BA in Psychology and MA in Communication from Stanford University, where she wrote and published a collection of psychological poetry as her undergraduate honors thesis. She currently lives in Austin, Texas.
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