Karishma Sangtani
after Wallace Stevens and Temsula Ao
I
On my sister’s road
in Birmingham, the oily light
of laburnum flowers.
II
Yellow tongues surrounded
by bees. Pollen collecting
on statically charged fuzz.
III
A terrier runs
with the stamina of fire
through a laburnum arch.
IV
A sister and a sister
are one.
A sister and a sister and a laburnum
are one.
V
All parts of the laburnum are unsafe to eat.
All things unsafe are laburnums.
A difficult conversation or laburnum?
VI
A fictional laburnum
follows me home.
VII
Bright racemes
like garlands hung up
for sale.
VIII
I imagine a laburnum shivering in the hospital
my sister works at. Another, erupting, quiet as a rash,
in the corner of my bedroom in Edinburgh.
IX
A bird flies over
the yellow warning.
The warning wobbles
in the wind.
X
I want you to know
I’ve just seen a squirrel
run from the bins to a laburnum and back.
XI
The laburnums in my head
start rumours about each other.
XII
Raindrops travel across a car window
like sperm. None of them reach
the laburnum at the end of the road.
XIII
Snow, all morning.
White laburnum branches
like the arms of used tissue.
Karishma Sangtani is a poet based in Edinburgh. Her work appears in magazines such as The North, Ink Sweat and Tears and Modron. She was shortlisted for the 2021 Aurora Prize and the 2022 Creative Future Writers’ Award. Karishma is a member of The Writing Squad and alumnus of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective.
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