the immigrant dream
you and me, together, in a house
that is just small enough to hear us hold our breath.
two tails, eight legs, and a pair of wet noses
running around our knees - not a single child in sight.
two cars in the driveway. a christmas tree touching the ceiling,
always four months into the new year. your hand on my waist
when i am sleeping or cooking breakfast or dancing in the bathroom
before bedtime. my nuzzling your clothes every time you leave the house
for a jug of milk or a midnight snack. gold rings glinting
in the muted light of the moon. a fluttering that lives in our
skin for as long as the sun turns in the sky.
Ishanee Chanda
Ishanee Chanda is a prose writer and poet from Dallas, Texas. She is the author or two books of poetry titled Oh, these walls, they crumble and The Overflow. Additionally, she has been published in the Eckleberg Project, Stoked Words: A Queer Anthology, Z Publishing House’s Emerging Texas Writers, Flypaper Magazine, and Apricity Press. Ishanee currently resides in Washington, D.C. where she works full-time in the field of humanitarian aid and refugee response. You can find her loitering a farmer's market, chasing her cat, and cooking her girlfriend fresh pasta every Tuesday night.