Graphic by Zoë Hu/The Gazelle
Artist: Pranav Mehta
Freshman Pranav Mehta is an engineering major whose poetry revolves around seemingly mundane things. His work doesn't conform to any particular style, ...
Oct 17, 2015
Freshman Pranav Mehta is an engineering major whose poetry revolves around seemingly mundane things. His work doesn't conform to any particular style, and in his featured poem, "Cotton clone," Mehta writes about a lost object lurking in the laundry room.
If you’d like to read more of Pranav's poetry, check out his website. To learn more about his work as an artist, listen to the podcast below.
Cotton clone
Twenty one days and thirtystrangers later, the
limonene-laced tang that hangs in
this theatre of thread, binds,
unwinds and rewinds
like an itchy insecurity
dignifying dread.
Stitch for stitch, these
tendons tensed on
ankles, toes and false
pretence. Binary births
are bonds of blood, but
we are stitch-fixed sheaths
that endure sweat, grime
and the double-timed rhythm of soles
in symphony.
We are cosy in cleats,
SPF-complete exoskeletons,
basking in the fabric froth of
rinse, spin, wring, repeat.
And yet, twenty one
days and thirty strangers
ago, swimming in a
whirlpool of
detergent-determined broth,
in a world of
dichotomous diversity,
twin togetherness,
distinct dualities,
how is it that
I was left
but you were all right?
Quarantined from mixed synthetics,
tumble-dried with shrunk aesthetics,
I lie among the slightly-linted
loose-fitting misfits.
I am a hole-turned-half,
umlaut in a paragraph,
resident of debris in a
perpetrated,
faithfully fractured
symmetry.
I miss the comforting
suffocation of your embrace
as we folded face-to face,
right-on-left-on-indistinguishable.
I miss hanging out in the sun
on the clothes-laden line that
dissolved the green grass from
the red-bled, alabaster linen laundry
in the pink of health.
I miss you, mirror me,
striped blue
facsimile.
Fill this void, forgotten friend
And put me back on feet again.
Pranav Mehta’s work was selected to be published as part of an ongoing initiative, run by The Gazelle’s Creative Desk, to create a space for student artwork. The Creative Desk publishes works selected by a rotating panel. We are looking for prose, poetry, photography, film, visual arts, music and more.
Send your creative work to isabella@thegazelle.org. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.
This week's artwork was selected by creative editor Isabella Peralta. Email her at feedback@thegazelle.org.
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