Priyatam Mudivarti

Wrote this out of a fic­tion work­shop at Grub­street. In my lan­guage, they call me Kaki. I have wings and I prey around ceme­ter­ies above dead fathers and moth­ers and old grand­par­ents buried deep in wood and figs. The peo­ple are scared of me when we fly in pairs, in the hun­dreds. It’s sun­day today and I see a new …

There was a crack in her face. She had bro­ken her nose under the bridge last night. It was bleed­ing cold. Crisp knives of sea salt cut through her shy toes. She looked up in the sky and the moon hadn’t come up yet. Just a gray cloud shift­ing its shadow. They said a storm was com­ing, she …