Purvis & Patel — May 2026

Ansuya Patel and Meredith Purvis traded art and words. Meredith shared this untitled image with Ansuya:

In response, Ansuya wrote this poem:

Snow is Like a Woman

after Kishwar Naheed

Snow arrives
laying her bright face against the world,
flurry of glitter dancing as if
to remind herself she exists.

As soon as snow falls
the plough
ready to shovel her aside,
metal mouth grinding her into gutter water
back to grey again.

How quick you move to strike
snow down, sweep away her dazzle
as though beauty belongs only
to the first thin frost of girlhood.

You want snow neat, salted,
slip through the shadows.
But snow rises from black teeth of drains,
from the cracked spine of winter fields,

silence of women who
swallowed whole seasons
and still sing.
If you cannot bear snow,
go conquer your own mountain.

* * * * *

Ansuya shared this poem with Meredith:

And the sun drags around the hours.
The game of cricket finally ends.
Men in white stride across

the lush lawn. Newlyweds
rest in the shade — her in lemon silk,
his hands clasped, watching a young man

smoke a thin cigarette. A child
in peach stands beside the sponge cake,
finger in her mouth, waiting

for someone to cut her a slice.
The maid catches a drop of tea
before it stains her starched apron.

Her slim brown fingers curled around
the copper pot all afternoon.
Later, at home, cricket on the radio,

beer in hand, he’ll call for supper.
The man in a red tie glances at her throat,
brushes her hand. Tobacco,

musk and sweat linger. Her body trembles.
She imagines been miles from here. A place
she once passed by the sea.

In response, Meredith made this image, titled “A Place by the Sea”: