Ruhi Jiwani

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The Horse on the Beach

I took my mom to the doctor
to get an injection that will stop her bones
from disintegrating and renewing.

We’re surrounded by renewal—
the sun rising and setting every day,
sex again and again between two people,
meals, work, friends, plants dying
and replaced in the home.

I should be able to take it in my stride,
but when I see that horse on the beach,
his ribs sticking out, his forelegs splayed
and blinkers on his eyes,
as he moves the carriage forward
so that the people sitting in the back
can enjoy the sea breeze,
something painful rises in my chest
and I want to swallow something beautiful
and choke.

Ruhi Jiwani's poetry has been published in The Eclectic Muse, The Binnacle, Off the Coast, Muse India, The Four Quarters Magazine, Femina, North Dakota Quarterly, Jubilat, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, and New York Quarterly Magazine. She has a Master’s degree in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and divides her time between Mumbai and New York City.