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Love Letter in Cobra Pose

by Shankar Narayan in Uncanny Magazine Issue Sixty-Two | 186 Words

                                       
Those I love best
are dust of feet, are bone to bone, are rag
and gut—and none of this
will matter. In fact matter
will not matter. I cannot feel
physics for void of you. Yes, I am flesh, wound
as copper coil or anaconda entrail,
neurons pulsing as mind maps maze within
which a rat is running within
whose brain lies
                                       
the map within which I
am running and so on. I
cannot stop, ever. In the transfer lounge I
caressed your cobra arcs with my
ten fingers before our separate
launchings but time was leaving. Now
decimal is future and our two planes un-
destined to intersect until spacetime bends. Such is flesh—
the basis of those I love
best. Soon to be superseded. So how
                                       
will I unbend—will I make it
love me? Will I will it
like a snakestrike?
                                       
(Editors’ Note: “Love Letter in Cobra Pose” is read by Erika Ensign on the Uncanny Magazine Podcast, Episode 62B.)

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© 2025 Shankar Narayan

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Shankar Narayan

Shankar Narayan

Shankar Narayan explores identity, power, mythology, and technology in a world where the body is flung across borders yet possesses unrivaled power to transcend them. Shankar is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the winner of prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, Hugo House, Jack Straw, Flyway, and River Heron. He is a 4Culture grant recipient for Claiming Space, a project to lift the voices of writers of color, and his chapbook, Postcards From the New World, won the Paper Nautilus Debut Series chapbook prize. Shankar draws strength from his global upbringing and from his work at the intersection of civil rights and technology. In Seattle, he awakens to the wonders of Cascadia every day, but his heart yearns east to his other hometown, Delhi. Connect with him at shankarnarayan.net.