“Welcome to Pāʻia” and “Lei La the canoe speaks”

By Lark Omura
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Poetry

“Welcome to Pāʻia” and “Lei La the canoe speaks”

Poetry

“Salon Sonnet” and “Matchmaker”

Poetry

Most schools have cut their French programs,/ but teaching it here sparkles.

Poetry

I’m alive and I have an appetite/ for longing.

Poetry

For a second, I imagine how it feels to inhabit a body people desire like gold.

Poetry

Kakolór pati kan álang na tulang nin tawó / an pigrunot na bagás asín ginibong puto. |
Especially when you notice the rice flour / that she uses is the color of human bone.

Poetry

where, fifty, years, earlier, lolo, learned, engineering

Poetry

My arms ache/ in the cereal aisle.

Poetry

you choose to put yourself beneath its flag

Poetry

I once lost my name in a pyre

Poetry

tangled gold necklaces knotted/ with grief, chains my mother will not break.

Poetry

I call myself “child” now like |/ ghost who calls itself alive.

Poetry

သူတို့မျှော်လင့်နေကြတဲ့/ အနာဂတ်ကို/ ငါတို့ မြင်ခွင့်ရပါ့မလား။ |
do their protests/ sound out a future/
we’ll be able to witness?

Poetry

映 with a skinny sun radical and 其 a pronoun/ pointing to who knows what.

Poetry

What if he just said the bird waited forever to alight.

Poetry

I am the world inside/ of every persimmon

Poetry

Joy is impossible to fake, they say.

Poetry

I am trying to imagine my new life when I am returned to the place of my parents’ birth.

Poetry

Now it’s raining and I’m sixteen and unlicensed.

Poetry

There are few men who will communicate with you in all the languages you know.

Poetry

“Welcome to Pāʻia” and “Lei La the canoe speaks”

Poetry

tangled gold necklaces knotted/ with grief, chains my mother will not break.

Poetry

“Salon Sonnet” and “Matchmaker”

Poetry

I call myself “child” now like |/ ghost who calls itself alive.

Poetry

Most schools have cut their French programs,/ but teaching it here sparkles.

Poetry

သူတို့မျှော်လင့်နေကြတဲ့/ အနာဂတ်ကို/ ငါတို့ မြင်ခွင့်ရပါ့မလား။ |
do their protests/ sound out a future/
we’ll be able to witness?

Poetry

I’m alive and I have an appetite/ for longing.

Poetry

映 with a skinny sun radical and 其 a pronoun/ pointing to who knows what.

Poetry

For a second, I imagine how it feels to inhabit a body people desire like gold.

Poetry

What if he just said the bird waited forever to alight.

Poetry

Kakolór pati kan álang na tulang nin tawó / an pigrunot na bagás asín ginibong puto. |
Especially when you notice the rice flour / that she uses is the color of human bone.

Poetry

I am the world inside/ of every persimmon

Poetry

where, fifty, years, earlier, lolo, learned, engineering

Poetry

Joy is impossible to fake, they say.

Poetry

My arms ache/ in the cereal aisle.

Poetry

I am trying to imagine my new life when I am returned to the place of my parents’ birth.

Poetry

you choose to put yourself beneath its flag

Poetry

Now it’s raining and I’m sixteen and unlicensed.

Poetry

I once lost my name in a pyre

Poetry

There are few men who will communicate with you in all the languages you know.