Naagin Dance by Sanchari Sur

As a kid, I watched Sridevi
flash her eyes, hands poised
like the hood of a snake
sashaying across the black and white tv.

My tiny tomboy body
trying to keep up.

Mother says I walk like an elephant;
I must dance like one too.

In zumba class
soca soaks me sweaty
I watch her body, liquid cocaine
feeling the music, drunk
stamping to her steps in tandem.

How do certain women move
the way they are on the dance floor
slender hips and shoulders
naagins, slithering out of reach.

How do certain women move
snake-hipped, sylph-like
always out of reach.

This poem was featured in Issue 07 of Canthius.

---

Sanchari Sur is a PhD candidate in English at Wilfrid Laurier University. Their writing can be found in Joyland, Al Jazeera, Toronto Book Award Shortlisted The Unpublished City (Bookhug, 2017), Prism International, Event Magazine, Room, and elsewhere. They are a recipient of a 2018 Lambda Literary Fellowship in fiction, a 2019 Banff residency (with Electric Literature), and Arc Poetry Magazine's 2020 Critics' Desk Award for a Feature Review.