No one told me about the jinns
but I know they were playing
hide and seek in the
water reeds that day.
The ship-wrecked rock was
thinking of the sea,
the bone-dry wadi bed
was thinking of rain,
and the unhatched fish eggs
were thinking of life.
It was the end of the world,
as I knew it.
But it had once been the
beginning of my world,
where I first learned to swim,
where I learned that rocks
assume disguises under water,
and that fish were migratory
creatures too, like the birds.
Beyond the hills
lay more hills
and if you were to
slice them open,
you would find
dinosaur ghosts
and plant fossils
and baked rock.
But just then,
before the
sun disappeared,
the hills simply looked
like slumbering beasts
and it would not have done
to disturb their sleep.

…

Priyanka Sacheti is a writer and poet based in Bangalore, India. She grew up in the Sultanate of Oman and previously lived in the United Kingdom and United States. Her literary work has appeared in numerous literary journals such as Barren, Berfrois, Dust Mag Poetry, Common, Parentheses Art, Popshot, The Lunchticket, and Jaggery Lit as well as various anthologies. She’s currently working on a poetry and short story collection. She can be found as @atlasofallthatisee on Instagram and @priyankasacheti on Twitter.