Poetry by Jen Gupta

           ​  Wonderlane CC




After he promises to quit  

I am saving this body for later.
I’ve memorized the lazy curve
of the nose, counted each fine
hair in the lips of the ears, so that 
even my pulse can recite him.

I’m praying these lungs pink
with each hidden cigarette,
every fiery stare that leaves 
our porch lonely. On the night 
of his last drag, I watch him 

smolder, release a smoky sigh 
before stuffing the flickering 
tip in the exhausted flower pot.
I don’t know how to tell him
that I will miss the smell 

of summer so I kiss his blistered 
lips, drink the lingering fumes 
like water, inhale the first 
boy who passed him the promise
of burning memories.

I kiss his fingers and taste 
that girl slick with lies, 
all her salty sting. By the end, 
my lungs are itching. We stare 
at the terracotta graveyard, 

each ghost another year,
another wrinkle in my blood.





As long as this world remains

I wish I could fold the world 
like a map, so that 7,605 miles 
were hidden, so the Atlantic Ocean
would disappear into a neat crease, 
so that our birth homes 
could sit next to each other 
like best friends in sixth grade, 
so that you would feel 
not so much like half of you 
is sleeping on the other side 
of the ocean, so that our becoming 
a family wouldn’t mean you 
consume your mother’s tangri kabab 
with your eyes, so that you 
are not the only one in the room 
who says ears instead of years
and uses meters instead of feet, 
so that you are not doing all of this 
alone, but as long as this world remains 
solid and rotating, I will keep trying 
to write my way to an answer, 
keep whispering, I’m sorry, 
I’m sorry into your sleeping ear, 
keep pretending that we entered 
the White Mountains and hiked 
to the Himalayas, keep learning 
your language and watching 
your movies like any of it 
can solve this 
unrelenting missing.
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Jen Gupta is a middle school English teacher, writer, avid hiker, and horse lover. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with her husband and their seven houseplants.

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