Poetry

I knew you as I knew summer,
your eyes red-veined in the
chlorinated air, a wave of wet hair
pasted to your forehead
in the warm drying shade,
the two of us sitting cross-legged
on puddled concrete by the showers,
studying the lady bug that had landed
on the back of your hand,
its seven spots crossing
the water-wrinkled surface
of your finger and stepping
seamlessly onto mine,
as if they were parts
of the same hand.
You waited until it finally flew away
before telling me – watching with your
knowing, red-veined eyes – that the lady bug
had left behind a trail of good luck,
from your hand to mine, which could never
be erased, no matter how much we washed.
We were still children then, with no reason
to doubt what we heard. I did not yet understand
why people hurt other people. We did not know
what prejudice or privilege meant.
We did not worry about gray areas.
Neither of us thought your seizures
were anything serious.
Who could have imagined you’d be the first
person we knew who would go,
six weeks before your eighteenth birthday?

​

The Hooghly Review, April 2024.