WOMAN SELLING FISH: OIL ON CANVAS: RAJA SEGAR: 2020
Ranudi Gunawardena
Ranudi Gunawardena is a Sri Lankan poet whose work explores the wombscape, childhood in rural landscapes, and the uncanny in nature, among others. Her work has appeared in literary magazines such as Action, Spectacle, Chestnut Review, Foglifter, Harbor Review, Magma Journal, ONE ART, Shō Poetry Journal, and SUSPECT. She studies at Williams College.
Abruptly, the light falls.
into the water, it cuts
whatever it touches open
At the market, a woman.
of color. Piles of fish feverish with
of escape,
A man with extended hands:
of a lover lost to sea.
each new face, like a silver-bellied fish
As if within light, submerged
grown so familiar as my hand.
grief hardens
Like a rod dropped
through every surface, leaves
rippling.
Upon her lap, a confusion
the thought
poking their heads through the net.
always only the shadow
Her eye opening to receive
gutted on the sand.
in loss. You had
Dismembered, how
into pearl, into pale moon above.