Lamenting Death on Rainy Afternoons

a poem by Aanavi Malik

After the first thunder of shock
Comes snakes and ladders
Till someone says
It’s real

Artemis makes way
Colorful and lionized
And beneath the paint
A huntress

Nobody tells you that
Parallel lines do not meet
They say they engage
At infinity

Grapevines make sense to me
They must not to you
Or if you’re the same stuff
Maybe they do