Jessica Nirvana Ram
Jessica Nirvana Ram’s poetry brims over with life and reverence for the surrounding world. The speakers of her poems consider with deep curiosity, admiration, and honesty the roles that family, love, and interconnectedness play in a life. In “lost language,” the speaker is haunted by a relationship, a feeling heightened by the poem’s formal choices. “Love Letter to the Chicken Marsala I Made for Dinner Tonight” invites the reader into the speaker’s kitchen, a place perfumed by wine and garlic where the speaker contemplates complex relationships in her life. These poems are rich and abundant, and we’re very excited to share them in our first poetry issue.
-Michael & Emily
lost language
I still imagine your tongue / sharp and pointed / between my legs / it’s been years / since your lips met my skin / but I remember it / the language only we spoke / the eager enjambments / the dips into italics / was it because I loved you? / that you could hum /into the cavern of me / and produce symphony / unspooled chaos / limbs and sweat / me with a pillow / over my face / in those riskier days / when other ears were nearby / how mischievous we once were / sneaking touch / like we were starved / wild / unkempt/ I could be exaggerating / it’s been years / I don’t know / what you sound like anymore / I’ve had to bury you / over and / over and / over again / and it is never enough / to rid of you / for good / when I have nothing else / I have the way your name / tastes in my mouth / familiar and worn / the way I tongue it / against every inevitable future / without you
Love Letter to the Chicken Marsala I Made For Dinner Tonight
I eyeballed the wines, marsala & sherry, crimson & copper,
until it felt right, over the mushrooms & garlic, letting it simmer
long enough for the alcohol to cook out that echo of brandy.
I poured the chicken stock slow, so as to not overwhelm
the temperature of the pan, listened for the sizzle before the cool
down, watched the bubbles go flat. When back up to temp
I returned the chicken to pan, lay them into the simmering sauce,
a sweet smell sauntering through my kitchen. I had Bollywood
booming out of the speakers tonight, coming from the living room
while I shimmied in front of the stove, swinging my head back
& forth, doing that part of cooking that reminds me to breathe,
the waiting. There’s so often waiting in the kitchen, waiting for
the stove to heat up, waiting for the proteins to cook through,
waiting for the sauce to thicken. I have become an expert on
waiting. On patience. When I visit my parents I watch my mother
cook, see the way she waits for garlic to brown, for coconut milk
to cook into curries, for my father to peel the shrimp. I’ve been
trying for years to get this recipe right, never quite managing
to nail the cooking wines. But tonight the sauce reduces & I
add chicken stock a second time, fill the pan so the chicken are
nearly half covered & let it reduce again. When the consistency
looks right I swipe a taste & my eyes widen because for the first
time, it tastes like my mother’s. From the sauce, to the chicken,
to the mushrooms. It tastes like all those years at home, over rice.
I almost call her, my mom, to tell her what I’ve done, but it is late
on a Wednesday & I figure it doesn’t hurt to wait, it never does.
Jessica Nirvana Ram is an Indo-Guyanese poet. She is the author of the poetry collection Earthly Gods (Variant Literature, 2024) and the chapbook in the aftermath (Prismatica Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in Hayden's Ferry Review, Prairie Schooner, Honey Literary, and elsewhere. Jessica was a 2022-23 Stadler Fellow, she currently works as the Publicity and Outreach Manager for the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts. She is the Director of Sticky Fingers at Honey Literary, a poetry reader for Split Lip Magazine and Okay Donkey Magazine, a poetry editor for Variant Literature, and an Associate Editor for West Branch.
Follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and check out more of her work here.