FROM OUR ECHO OF SUDDEN MERCY “FOUNDATIONS ARE BEING SHAKEN” —“IMPERYALISTA | THE TOWER” JANA LYNNE UMIPIG, KAPWA TAROT

Hari Alluri

    i 

Beneath the earth the earth 
is always rumbling. 

And here, a little helplessness to hold like a newborn child--
it’s not only the child who’s helpless it’s the holding. 


    i 


If you ever get to watch the eggs fall as you rush them

out the fridge, crack on the lip left by its open door, spill 
there and onto the linoleum as they tumble; if you towel 
those eggs up, sob-sobbing the whole time, “I can’t do this, I 
can’t,” hand and knees to floor, “I can’t,” pour the surviving 
yolks, from the somehow upright carton into the already-
warmed-up frying pan, no need to panic:
there will be other chances not to quite pull through.


    i 


Please, don’t appropriate 
this error into the good small 
moments of your day--we need more 
betrayal if we want to keep forgiving—not if you believe 
that language is a spell. 

Blessed are those 
who ghosts and demons 
flock towards. And every time, ingat, 
my loves. My loves: Ingat. 


    i 


Is it possible that countries do not have a body the same way 
my knees my hips my spine my lips don’t have a country? 

It’s true: some days will sorrow more than other days, 
and the lightest drizzle mocks us by refusing to downpour. 

That must be part of it, yes? The gravity we need? 
Strong enough to pull down rain, weak enough to let it rise, 
kind, no maybe soft, or dare I say it generous 
enough we aren’t pummeled always by the falling.

---

Hari Alluri (he/him/siva) is a migrant poet of Philippine & South Indian descent living and writing on unceded Musquea,, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh. Oayqayt. Kwikwetlem lands. Siya is the author of The Flayed City (Kaya Press) and the chapbooks The Promise of Rust (Mouthfeel Press) and Our Echo of Sudden Mercy (forthcoming from Next Page Press). A co-editor of We Are Not Alone (Community Building Art Works) and co-founding editor at Locked Horn Press, his work appears in anthologies, journals, and online venues, most recently – via Split This Rock – in Best of the Net 2022. Find Him @harialluri and at https://linktr.ee/harialluri.