In My Midriff

He had done all those
things
one would want to do in secret
with a language.
Like scratching his own back.

(from Riding Two Horses)

Sivakami Velliangiri has just released her chapbook In My Midriff (downloadable here from Lily Press). Her poems are by turns deceptively tranquil, eerie, and blazing with feeling. Such as

and thunder softer than the cracking
of a neck at an unusual hour.

(from Napoleon was the First, Hitler was the Second, So Are You the Third Antichrist?)

The striking imagery takes off from folk tales and modern tales, and can be often feminist (as in "To My Alma Mater") or very sexy (as in "Naughtiest Girl in School 1970").