Oki Sogumi
Turning
slowly the leaves on the tree
quickly the leaves on the tree
heat bearing drifts of pollen, the empty street at noon
days of ambiguous storming mixed with leftover fireworks
it’s the years people feel the least patriotic that you get the most
fireworks
whatever the theme, or who officiates the daily atrocity
it’s always the season of the scream
and our minor escapes pile up
into just another heap in this weather
form is not forever:
all the ways to tie a scarf,
a caved-in body bursting into smaller
kin,
& where the head should be, there’s
a cloud holding every conversation once
held at a whisper
now, getting louder and
louder
Oki Sogumi was born in South Korea, lives in Philly & perpetually ferries an unfinished sci-fi novel between the living and the dead. Her collection, Poems (2012-2017), was published by Face Press (UK).