Kuhu Joshi
ANTELOPES
Once my father figured out
I was talking in my spare time to boys,
texting them even, mixing songs on my iPod
in honor of them, he hurled
the small dark body of my device across the room
where it bounded off the table, the chair-leg
then cracked on the floor. Because, my mother said,
your father was once a boy who lived with other boys
and knows what they are like. Zoo animals
caged in the same space together, bending to pull leaves
from the lowest branches. A cult, separate from us
and my father was in on it. Had secret data,
how groups of boys were bred, how they ‘thought’
of girls. Your father gets like this
because he knows. Reader, consider me now,
in love with a good man. It’s hard
to love a good man. He’s perpetually under trial.
Yesterday, I grabbed his arm and kissed his throat
then pushed him off the sidewalk. There is this anger
inside me, I told him over dinner
as we sipped soup, interrupted by the waitress
bending over to ask how everything was.
Everything is fabulous, I thought, except
I can’t sleep at night. So far from my man
who is simply pleased with the tang of his
teriyaki chicken. We saw caged
antelopes one time at Queens Zoo.
Open field with muddy hills, a lush
scattering of trees. The biggest guy rose hugely
like a mountain from behind the others
grouped on their knees. He waded his eyes
in slow swooping motions like a skilful
windshield wiper. My lover put his arm
instinctively around me. Let’s go, he said,
with a satisfied peck on my cheek. But I
wanted to stay, learn something.
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Image byTasso Mitsarakis from Unsplash
Kuhu Joshi is the author of My Body Didn't Come Before Me (Speaking Tiger, 2023), a collection of poems exploring disability/deformity and girlhood, selected by the Indian poet Arundhathi Subramaniam as the recipient of a first-book award. Kuhu traces her lineage to the mountains of Kumaon in Uttarakhand, India, and has lived in New Delhi most of her life before migrating to New York. She received her MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College where she was a Jane Cooper Poetry Fellow and studied under the mentorship of the poet Marie Howe. Her work has been published in POETRY, Four Way Review, Best New Poets, Rattle, Memorious, SWWIM, and other literary magazines. She has received support from the Academy of American Poets, Napa Valley Writers Conference, The Teaching Artist Project, and Vermont Studio Center. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets on multiple occasions. She currently teaches creative writing and English composition as an adjunct professor at Pace University and LaGuardia Community College.
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