Nidha Sha is a medical student and writer who believes storytelling can be both a scalpel and a salve. When she isn’t studying or writing, she can be found embroidering, crocheting, or cuddling with her cat.

Nidha Sha

our plane’s wing slips over the crimson moon
and the man beside me asks for
a bloody mary and I ask for ginger ale
air bubbles I choke through my nose
into my torqued stomach full of
pesto pasta and sun-dried tomatoes
reminiscent of the old salad bar by my

old flat—there, I would stand in black ink-
stained ruby scrubs and look at
the black-ruby tomatoes and black-ruby raisins—
here, I fall asleep and miss the second round
of biscoff cookies and ginger ale and garden

salsa potato chips I miss my
old salad bar and I watch
the moon, and the black-ruby
bloody mary man

Nidha Sha

Nidha Sha

Poetry

Summer 2025

The Salad Bar on Holcombe Boulevard