’Shivani Mehta was born in Mumbai and raised in Singapore. A graduate of Hamilton College, she earned a Juris Doctor from the Syracuse University College of Law in 2002. Her poem “Twenty-One People between My Legs (and Counting) won Third Place in Narrative’s Third Annual Poetry Contest. Mehta lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.


THIRD PLACE WINNER


Twenty-One People between My Legs (and Counting)

by Shivani Mehta

The first person between my legs was the old man
from the sea. He sailed his skiff around my lake,
saltwater on his tongue.

The second person between my legs
was an orangutan.
Have you seen my bananas? he asked from inside me,
forlorn, because I hadn’t.
People on couch
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