Track Nine: “God”

Track Nine: “God” Sumita Chakraborty (bio) Keywords poetry, Sumita Chakraborty, religion, clothing, outer space, aliens, exploration Please, forgive me— Here I must drop my pretenselike a silk skirt. I am not we.The Committee has designatedme, and me alone, to cleanup after the left behind. They picked mebecause I am expendable. When I fail, which I will,I too will join the left behind.My replacement won’t tell youabout me. Her jobwill be to pick upfrom where I left off.We have been asked to ensurethat the seams don’t show. I am the wrong personto tell you about God. I worry, though, that the right personmay forget to tell youthat when we feel too largefor our earthly plane, we scream,Oh God. Oh God. Oh. [End Page 119] Sumita Chakraborty sumita chakraborty is a poet and scholar. She is the author of the poetry collection Arrow (Alice James Books [US]/Carcanet Press [UK]), which received coverage in the New York Times, NPR, and the Guardian. She is currently writing a scholarly book, Grave Dangers: Poetics and the Ethics of Death in the Anthropocene, which is under an advance contract with the University of Minnesota Press. The recipient of honors from the Poetry Foundation, the Forward Arts Foundation, and Kundiman, she is assistant professor of English and creative writing at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. Copyright © 2023 The Massachusetts Review, Inc