A carpet of moss exhales inside an abandoned temple. A lone figure scrapes grime from a row of faded headstones. He brings flowers to a sunken patch of grass—chrysanthemum, hyacinth, pink lily mid-bloom—& lights a white candle beside the bouquet. Pacing the soil above his love’s stripped bones, upon the damp ground he kneels. Summer …
He was late for the flight. She can’t find her sandals.He waved to her behind zigzagging stanchions. She thinks about her future. He used a towel for the leaky toilet.She scrubs the sink as rain overflows the street.He hated continental breakfast. She thinks continent, an adjectivefor restraint. He boiled water. She weighs out tea for …
There was so much quicksandin the movies when I was a kid,so that’s what I think of as I watchan ant thrash on the carnivorous leafof a butterwort plant, each attemptto free itself from the viscid tongueonly making the situation worse,a dawning panic as it lifts a legand with its mandibles tries to snip offone …
The 14A District Court stands near the cornerof Washtenaw and Carpenter, presiding overthe busiest intersection in the whole city, which meanswhen you’re being taken into custody, you can counton having a little extra time to wait. I cried at that light.My father told me to find a dunce cap for having the gallto pick a …
Luminous—the ink you pouraround bullet holesto paint blooms pain turned topetals, terror—tostyle and stigma Ovaries fill withjuice, and we too learn:lives are fragile & can get broken As for life, it says yesAlways—yes No usedenying it
1 On All-You-Can-Eat A sentence is not always a consequence waiting to happen.The edges of the park were yellow-taped from the public.When the first man landed on the moon, I only wanted to gohome. No one listens to the radio after the hurricane makeslandfall. I dreamt of walls papered with ripped bougainvillea.People always say the …
Pelvic bones are nothing like wingsor blades. I know because I saw them in a meadowat Mount Diablo. They must have come from a mother cow,birth canal a wide hollow. I touchedthe wild rye that pulsed inside.*Once, in the desert, my motherand I argued about the shape of the earthuntil I wept. Wind chimes jangled …
I Watching Black Sea sand draw away from your feet the lateness of faith—that teetering while slumped over a phone. That someone of the same hamlet knows little of it, of others of it. A menagerie of pottery shards and sheepskin. That a hermit is to others merely a country: a painting of a woman …
![“Corpus | Divine” and “The [ ] of Cloth”](https://www.cincinnatireview.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Preeti-Parikh-360x450.webp)
Two poems by Preeti Parikh in an exclusive excerpt from issue 20.2.
A rugged coyote wandered close by the oceanside communities. Tired, it sat beneath a palm tree and took a nap. It dreamed of its former life as a medieval dragon. It had conquered many rustic lands as a fierce dragon. Now, the lonesome coyote hardly ever sang anymore. Most of the city slickers didn’t realize …
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