top of page
Search

First Time in L.A. by Archana Sridhar

The moon-faced old man hauls my suitcase

Into the underbelly of the Buzz Lightyear Disney Express

The velcro of his single black glove frays with each smile.

Bienvenidos abordo


I’m startled by the lavender-crayon flowers of the jacaranda

Creeping shyly over washed-out stucco walls that

Separate highway from houses, speed from sprawl.


Neon signs spell “HIS NIBS CIGS” in the strip mall window.

A fringe of Italian cypress peeks out from behind

Layers of adobe tile that hide the city’s shame.


At the underpass, a man roasts brown under the sun,

Wears a thinning undershirt with nylon shorts.

Broken bottles and emptied plastic drums roll down the gravel hillside.


Hands on hips, he inspects his vast desert empire.

My mind dissolves the porthole of my bus window and

I scream to him, “Why make camp here?”


But in the breezes of that last day in April, no cover for miles,

He does not even look up at me, at the witnesses

Careening towards a smudged out skyline.



Archana Sridhar is a university administrator, poet, and mother living in Toronto. A graduate of Harvard Law School and a former Fulbright Scholar, Archana's poetry focuses on the themes of race, meditation, and trauma. Archana loves visiting any place where the staff have to dress up in period costumes. 


#poetry #issue1 #ArchanaSridhar

30 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

the cankerous grackles in the parking lots swarming in synchronicity like a biblical plague they don’t scare easy no matter how mean you make your face instead they congregate right in your path and t

across the room from me, my guitar pulses bright colors, throbs dreams I can’t ignore. I think about sleep but the music’s too loud. my guitar sprouts lilies not intended to twine, purrs of birds I’ll

Hope to Thaw If I were frozen in the ground, I’d hope to thaw. I’m left with muddy footprints and sticky fingers- I’m a thief. I stole what I needed to survive: a wet tongue, a Celtic cross against a

bottom of page