Dirt

Nishtha Trivedi

Some have the luxury to be

lowered six feet in soil towering

over bedrock, elbowing out clay and loam,

even after the dirt is packed in

what is displaced is only known to wind,

men in velvet-lined boxes continue their occupations.

I did not know even dirt has a taxonomy:

shit to stardust, us and them

I did not know grief until I knew grime—

dirt that ingrains in the fault lines of being

alive, wet earth gives way to my feet

imprinting the coincidence of me

on the consequences.

Some do not have the luxury to be

whole, I learned debris is the unknowable,

the scattered remains of dirt and who

does not get to claim the land in late

harvest, while fruits ripen and rotten

and the soil cradles them like a mother

whose children went cradle to soil

and on and on it goes. The world

ends every day, the ground-breaking

machine is fueled by bones. Unyielding

roots grasp earth and water and air—

when flowers erupt through topsoil, they dare

to stare at the sun, already ruined.

NISH TRIVEDI is a first-year Ph.D. student in English at Brown University. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island with her partner.