MEHRISH, DIVYA
Divya Mehrish
Age: 17, Grade: 12
School Name: Spence School, New York, NY
Educator: Sara Beasley
Category: Poetry
Elegy to My Name
I curve with the body of name—
my lips waxy with the melting plastic
of synthetic voice. I call myself in
sleep, purring for limbs tripping on
bone. I need to unravel the letters
in my gums the way mama used to
trudge through the forest of my scalp—
fingers slithering between conifers,
peeling bark from elbows. I never
showed her how to map her way
through my trunks, even as the comb
bit through my ears, trying to escape
sunless paths. I wanted mama to pull
body from brain—unshielded apex,
once blessed by the hand of God.
My name whistles through branches
oozing from follicles like wind
refracting through teeth—my parents
bled themselves into my eyes. When
I was born, wrists sliced, lapping
wisps of father’s voice, mother’s gulp
seeping into my pores. I have always
feared water. Now that time is rainless,
I press the buds of my fingertips into
stomach—knead skin like the inside
of taxidermy—unfinished leather.
I hail myself like a storm cloud, like
a Virgin pregnant with the Savior,
pregnant with self. My name, an ode
to lips chapped with missed anniversaries.