Raga Ayyagari

Raga Ayyagari is a poet who draws inspiration from nature, stories, art, and unexpected moments of connection. Her work has previously appeared in the Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Yellow Arrow Journal, and Stanford University's Leland Quarterly Journal. She has shared poetry at various readings and facilitated several workshops on ecopoetry. She works as a public health researcher and enjoys both technical and creative writing.

Displacement

Digging with gloved hands in the deserted creek, I pull at the roots of weed-like stories: one muddy shoe, laces still tied, a black tattered cloth - a coat or perhaps some pants? There’s a half full tube of toothpaste and
lids of chipped beer cans, forks, but no knives, a rusty bucket filled with something brown and a mirror cleansed by the recent rain, catching the murky sunlight. Earthworms burrow in the back of an old monitor and across scraps of
metal from floppy disks. And there is glass everywhere. Too much glass to be a bottle or a frame - no, perhaps it is a windshield shattered in the rushed journey to another margin of hardened earth.

Plastic Plantation

With a bow to “Honoring,” by Joy Harjo
We fill our shopping cart with ourharvest from the plastic plantation.
Apples encased in clear trays, sliced melons wrapped in airtight film, crispgrapes ripened in translucent tubs,
from shelf to cart to car to fridgepackages flattened to figures on receipt.
Where are the roots? What were the names of the farmers who sowed the seeds? And who were thelaborers who nurtured and picked them?
What did the factory workers who packed them eat for breakfast?What radio station did the truck drivers listen to as they kept the fruitcompany over thousands of lonely miles? And why?
Tens of hands tended to the tomatoes that my fingers graze at mindlessly.
Tens of tears watered the gourdthat gives me warmth on winter nights.
Tens of tongues sang to the strawberriesthat dissolve into a sweet symphony in my mouth.
Past boxes and walls and borders,invisible roots extend from all I consume,the fruits become my flesh.

Subscribe

Copyright © 2020-2023 Trio House Press, Inc.