GILDED FLOWERS
Hands like velvet
Uprooting them
From earthen blankets
They once nestled within
Held by the shadow looming above
Whispered to with dandelion seeds
Of ephemeral promises
Its language twisted as feral vines
That sprawl boundlessly
In contradicting knots
Awakening in unfamiliar rigidity
In a room as ornate as their leaves
Their colors consumed by glimmering paint
Covering them like new skin
Unable to tell themselves from one another
They watch the hours fall
Like thorns disregarded
From the glass that holds them
They watch the gleaming coins
Float into familiar velvet hands
Profiting in the amusement
Of its gilded schemes
They watch as the countless opulent strangers
Watch them with eyes that pry
Weakened by the saccharine water of their praise
The adulation of the strangers end
Where their glossy concealment begins
The gold that confines
The flowers
Fade with time
Like the strangers they entertain
Imprisoned
Within the chasm of excess
The gilding does not disguise
The size, growing deeper
The bareness remains
Even with gold paint
GRANDMA SYLVIA
She sits on the stoop
Of the apartment she brings color to.
Warming people with smiles,
taking away the frigidness of the city air
Her windowsill garden, a pocket of old places
For the parrots in the city
Bursts of jewel-toned wings amid the grey smog
She feeds them with oranges from the market, so they feel they belong.
She waters the wildflowers
And even the weeds, brazen in their conquest of space
Breathing like no other breath matters
Intimidating the sunflowers out of their color
As though the sunset wrings itself out for no one else
Like the passenger with the withering glare on the train, persisting without breaks
there is no difference, when the nebulous black holes for eyes
Swallows perspective all the same
Yet its hunger remains
Only in her glasses, am I clear
Reflected with the bursting peachiness of the afternoon sun
She has plastic rainbow alphabet magnets on the white linoleum fridge
Marks of familiarity
Like the lines on her skin that tell me who she is
That tell me who I am
The sky that melts into deep violet
The flushing swirl of purple hues
Like the blanket of safety she carries within
A reminiscence of memories
I call her Grandma Sylvia
About the Author: Reena Sarju is a nineteen-year-old South Asian-Canadian poet based in Scarborough. She is a second-year student at the University of Toronto, working towards a double-major in English and Creative Writing. Her poems originate from her lived experience, with a focus on identity formation alongside societal challenges.
