Stephanie Choi
Erased Palm Revelation
night peels back its crystal crusted eyes
this is the hour of black coffee
and milk biscuits. of charred logs
and spider legs. sky a gray pool,
morning wounds you
already awake. air serrated
by silence. yesterday’s hours
spent angry with each other
nailed to the walls. from ground
to ceiling the ruby rounds
unevenly mapped. elsewhere
an engine starts, startles
the birds. and winged fingers
again reach for one another.
night peels back its crystal crusted eyes
this is the hour of black coffee
and milk biscuits. of charred logs
and spider legs. sky a gray pool,
morning wounds you
already awake. air serrated
by silence. yesterday’s hours
spent angry with each other
nailed to the walls. from ground
to ceiling the ruby rounds
unevenly mapped. elsewhere
an engine starts, startles
the birds. and winged fingers
again reach for one another.
emergent nobody
this obsession with nobody. emily negates the body
through which the song rises, mitski needs her body
negated to make the song. it’s not true
that i’m a nobody too, not true that i have
nobody. i have at least a handful of people
who’d answer if i called, at least two waiting
for my call. i have a book, a good job. i love
to feel sad and sorry for myself
like Mitski. i never call. i don’t
want to be a frog. i think
of my best lines staring out
the window above the kitchen sink,
eating alone. season 12, episode 6
of Law and Order: SVU quotes emily,
turns her wry ecstasy into the survivor’s
traumatic memory. do i love this show
because i’m reminded at least this isn’t
happening to me, or because i wish
something would happen to me? i worry
all the sorrow i’ve ever felt
has been manufactured to make these poems.
i just need one good honest
life-altering email. the difference
between i am nobody and i have nobody--
to claim oneself as, to lament oneself
as not having. these days i’m never
sated—is it me, or inflation? when i
open the window, all the goldfinches flutter away.
this obsession with nobody. emily negates the body
through which the song rises, mitski needs her body
negated to make the song. it’s not true
that i’m a nobody too, not true that i have
nobody. i have at least a handful of people
who’d answer if i called, at least two waiting
for my call. i have a book, a good job. i love
to feel sad and sorry for myself
like Mitski. i never call. i don’t
want to be a frog. i think
of my best lines staring out
the window above the kitchen sink,
eating alone. season 12, episode 6
of Law and Order: SVU quotes emily,
turns her wry ecstasy into the survivor’s
traumatic memory. do i love this show
because i’m reminded at least this isn’t
happening to me, or because i wish
something would happen to me? i worry
all the sorrow i’ve ever felt
has been manufactured to make these poems.
i just need one good honest
life-altering email. the difference
between i am nobody and i have nobody--
to claim oneself as, to lament oneself
as not having. these days i’m never
sated—is it me, or inflation? when i
open the window, all the goldfinches flutter away.
--
Stephanie Choi's poems appear in Blackbird, Copper Nickel, Electric Literature, New Ohio Review, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, The Lengest Neoi, was selected by Brenda Shaughnessy for the 2023 Iowa Poetry Prize and published in 2024. She was the 2023-24 Poet-in-Residence at Sewanee and is an Assistant Professor of English at Oklahoma State University.
Stephanie Choi's poems appear in Blackbird, Copper Nickel, Electric Literature, New Ohio Review, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, The Lengest Neoi, was selected by Brenda Shaughnessy for the 2023 Iowa Poetry Prize and published in 2024. She was the 2023-24 Poet-in-Residence at Sewanee and is an Assistant Professor of English at Oklahoma State University.