by Niyathi Chagantipati
for the Holden Caulfields
He’s circling underneath, pausing,
turning and peddling.
It’s just two of us, empty bag of bread
to my left, stolen in furious haste, yet now, efforts of
the day, meaningless. He’s back. I don’t ask where he
went when the water froze over, when sobs grew
louder as light drew shorter, when the earth would
thrash and curse, when allowed. May abandoned us.
Somehow the lake never betrayed him,
and he never betrayed me, and presently,
he is below my dangling feet — fifteen off — and I
debate: should I be winter or claim spring? I follow
the sopping bread crumbs.
Niyathi Chagantipati is a Senior at Harvard College studying English with a secondary in Global Health & Health Policy. She started writing poetry a few summers ago after researching Asian American Poetry and having spent most of high school competing in Poetry Out Loud competitions. She is now a member of The Harvard Advocate’s poetry board and executive board as well as the Spoken Word Director for Harvard Ghungroo. Her work is primarily in critical conversation with novelists and poets as well as being centered around disability writing.
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