The American Pastoral | Pratiksha Malayil
(Hold onto this blue almanac splattered
with maize and soon sickly-syrup
on the e-brake, the horn)
God is in the backyard under a freckled sky
Under a grandfather kayak passed down with
the fish and all the poisoning-seasonings
down by the lake I thought of
in the middle of Nebraska.
She crinkled like the magazine in her hands,
along with extra large bandaids, a lone pack
of rubber bands, the smallest bag of dish detergent you could buy.
She drops the can of peaches for another headline
on the shelf and lets them dent
for mistake justification, to allow for garbage, and
those types of natural cycles for
me to disrupt with purpose as the only
savior I could be, to bring it home and raise it.
I had brought the cheap poles out
to trek to the middle of whatever had scared me
with the tune of a bear bell to a lighthouse
to a satellite green light I’d like to believe
was a breathing star, or a plane – like Saturn,
with rings or moons
or something to give, like me
on that lake in Nebraska bringing peaches.
But I was always bowing under myself –
to how I raised you, to my saving act –
though you will fold into something
new when I break you
Saving purpose, showing everything is how it is to be
to complete the end at my hands
Everything was consumption:
all the actions were endings of something.
I threw the can like a rock and expected it to skip.
It came back
sinking as a ripple, over –
letting me smile, forgiving the lack of loss for death in another form, one without
something to live for
(There is no salvation in a waste
of golden stagnant syrup baptized
and starving in the water chasing –)
– me, coming back
to hit my feet: it was reprehensible,
becoming a word sweeter than the waiting.
Pratiksha Malayil is a senior majoring in Public Health at the University at Albany, from Long Island, New York. Her work explores systems and liminality, tracing lived experience between the physical and the abstract as it emerges through the tenderness of the everyday, the responsibility of attention. You can find more of her work on Instagram @pratikshamalayil.