Vanitha Sankaran's Editor's Pick
End
by Davide Trame

When my end comes I would like to be
the exhausted antelope squatting in the dry grass,
definitely beaten, utterly outrun
by the running hunter.
Waiting for his spear, entering
the vast beyond, leaving the body
by sheer exhaustion.
And there will be the luminous,
grinding net of cicadas growing,
the surf of the sea of the plain.
My closing eyes will be
a spreading acknowledgement of sunlight,
my flank going to be pierced
the surrendering roar of an inner sky.
My skin will become tents shielding from hot noons,
my bones another curve like a smile
among the scattered stones and the feet
of children playing.