Anoushka Kumar
​

Natural Selection For The Lonely Individual
Cento with lines from Hanif Abdurraqib, Solmaz Sharif, and Cameron Awkward-Rich

I keep dry when the rain comes.

I have infinite skin. I know what it is to walk into the mouth of an unfamiliar morning and feel
everything.

There was an inlet I pulled over once to watch the sunset, which was still another hour or so
away, the light just low enough there to begin to change.

I have a dream in which I love the world. The flight of doves, the city of tents beneath the
underpass, the huddled mass, old women hawking roses, & children, all of them.

I should’ve stayed.
​
I suppose this is survival. There are no borders, only wind.

Maybe we both long for an era when there were less things to record death.
​
I will love those who no one else thinks to remember.

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Anoushka Kumar (she/her) is a student and writer from India, with work forthcoming or published in Poetry Northwest, DIALOGIST, Rogue Agent Journal, and elsewhere. She likes wood-panelled flooring and Phoebe Bridgers.