Hannah Seo
If eyes are the windows
then ears are the doors, flesh waves in every gentle roar. I hold the memories
of August in my ribs,
when the moon felt like teeth— in the dark of scaffolds and juniper trees, I recalled the things I both fear
& revere like graveyards at dusk or elderly librarians; things which linger in spite of physics. And
the sonata blew through
me in windsong while the leaves thronged to forgive me my earnestness. I am fluent
in all of my lacks—how I have claim to neither rubble nor soil. It is said the moon, too, was once earthen
debris: an involuntary gasp
floated from the lips
of the firmament
.
.
.
& how to learn moonlight when you’ve never seen at all? (the slipp’ry smooth of a seashell, a flute’s hollow lilt)
This poem was originally published in Portland Review on June 9, 2020.