POETRY February 6, 2015

Outgrowing: An Equation

Ellen Kombiyil

by Ellen Kombiyil

Looking back, we spill from the car onto a black expanse that is not shimmering.

It is nighttime; therefore lakes and lawns are visual equivalents of homophones.

If in moonlight Y flings her beer, then I in unison flick my hair.

I is equivalent to Y and Z, milling around the shrubbery.

Only the grass is certain, certain of an equation. Only the lawn resisting shimmering refuses a replacing.

Let I rest against the tree, a solid that is splintering.

If night-bark furrows, then history can be shed.

Let sprinklers equal X, an absence that is manifest.

Now solve for bare feet glisten. Now step on constellations.

Ellen Kombiyil is a poet, writer, and writing teacher. New work can be found in Barely South Review, Poemeleon, Redactions and Stone Canoe. She is a Founding Poet of The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective (www.greatindianpoetrycollective.org), which publishes first and second books, showcasing new poetic voices from India. Originally from Syracuse, New York, and a graduate of the University of Chicago, for the past 10 years she lived in India. She currently resides in New York.
Ellen Kombiyil is a poet, writer, and writing teacher. New work can be found in Barely South Review, Poemeleon, Redactions and Stone Canoe. She is a Founding Poet of The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective (www.greatindianpoetrycollective.org), which publishes first and second books, showcasing new poetic voices from India. Originally from Syracuse, New York, and a graduate of the University of Chicago, for the past 10 years she lived in India. She currently resides in New York.