by Sophia Terazawa
for my teachers, Susan Briante, Farid Matuk,
and Brandon Shimoda, who brought me to the line
[i]
Years will quiet all memory: the water jar behind a courtyard, fabric and
November through December having been driven to terrible heartbreak, we, who can blame no one, would pack seven years of notes
If those are
—rose quartz
—a dead desert rose
Unified future will perform with a band
Bits of afternoon pull up, therefore we
—who sit for our turn like Lê Văn Lộc in Cyclo watching his sister polish a customer’s shoe
—our own ensemble cast
—who will ascend the Gate of Virtue keeling with the crowd at Tết, who sob openly for so much want
—and the horsemen dismounting
—who will command them before our time
—who will ace the royal exams, our eighty-one names on the shells of turtles
Rejecting purple in all forms would be Confucius, Book Seventeen, though Wang Bi on chaos will drape the Analects in red-dyed fabric; if we begin there, somehow
—with Xích Lô: yellow paint and blue paint, depictions of torture unlike our country or a dream
—where is it now in the dream
—a little dialogue: please, can you hold it level, I’ve been ascending those steps my brother screaming all the way up
—I won’t forget it, how can I
Bring the meaning of lighter fluid on flesh
Bronze horses realistic
—a pulse having been felt galloping through the smaller gates
—a furious monk in the fourth courtyard well on his way between dynasties
Eye of winter, believe us
Eying the place originates an organizational method
—who will pluck the instrument and who will listen from outside a low screen
—the low fog
—motorbikes passing, passing one another in kind
—this place partially lit by incense, which is to say, world of smoke, end-to-end murmuration
—the low cooking pots
—in Nostalghia, candles long as want
Domiziana Giordano-spun shadow clicks away for the present to condemn me or you, who will rush
—between halls: our towels slopping to the floor
—between towns: a poor rumor about cowbells haunting an empty pasture
—between Books Six and Seven: the plough ox
—subject, place, August snow
—where, in cinema or philosophy, I separate notes among you, who can be many or two or just one who will
—between mirrors: follow along to proceed unafraid in the gray pasture
—between breathing and a scene, who will turn on a heel, say: oh, Eugenia, you must release every dove
She shakes her head: I can’t, I won’t
And the candles horrify without breaking
—dust on the altar
—procession
—bowed shoulders, a slip modest
—alluvial brown stockings visible beneath the skirt hiked as she bends slightly forward
To be clear, the book smells
On the fourth ambiguity, citing Donne, Empson outstretches both hands where the tapering seams
—a tiny knot going over itself
—running stitch
—satin stitch detail: coral blossom cupped in more fabric out to dry
Ziggurat, a new smell going back
—the jar with collected rainwater sits for 950 years at the Temple of Literature; three years will sufficiently draft a spirit
—shaking her head: such will harms me
—will the years correct how I had met particular wares of indignity;
—to love a loveless singer means watching him break a cassette player from my mother onstage
—the one she got to practice English, the one she gives, has given
—the mistake’s grammatical
—voice-mixing pronouns with tense; it’s okay, someone else says bubbling
Ambiguity mismatching a green leaf
Balakian, who will write about the Towers and Coke, lyrical starlings over morning traffic
—who will go to Rome and write about tombs
—who will write past Lorca; green will scuttle differently; these are faux-satin but the grain
Film: on which everyone writes
—these are numbers
—dot for a needle
—dot siren, coast near dusk, little cars wend the cliff; we, so few in bad lighting, look for the cypress centuries old on a crag of its own; we tremble here tucking eight legs beneath a shawl
—Eugenia waits nearby; she will
—autobiography of witness: standing-room only
—Daughters of the Dust, Eula by Alva Rogers
—baby adrift in sequence: play, play
—will the harm needle out companion books for perpetuity
—yes/no
Everyone, within frame, will say cheese
—at the pool party where Jarmusch plays softly in the backdrop: Hamdan’s guttural background night, “Hal”
—drumming horses will concretize
—drumming into the image’s outer frame: Tilda Swinton as Eve before Adam
—drumming engine starting up the way heat palpitates at elemental cues
—dust-driven
—the drumming will wax and wane
—the drumming musicians seated will swoon having, for both performances, fasted on melons, for the sweetest melody calms an angry angel
—the drumming will likely be forgotten
—dragon fruit, banana
Speedway, down which Kou and Leo will carry each shoe thrown off
—who, having thrown those shoes will be our secret
—who, having read by candlelight will quote Faiz Ahmed Faiz, “Before You Came,” eye to jasmine
Left or right on the roundabout, it won’t make for beauty though
Left on Cankarjeva
—she will live for thirty days in the rose singing: why do fools
—a stitch across her book cover and the sky less poisonous
—an aria from Maïwenn
—a glass flute like fire: Donizetti’s “Il dolce suono” on CD
—a glass table clattering when the coffee arrives
—four candles, precipitous stacks of rugs
—a gold-leaf serving tray
In the corner, someone is mending rips on a shirt sleeve
In the corner
—devout: I will wait for that touch
Taurus, who will wait afield, cloud-covered castle of months in which there are no ceilings, just composition and
—light will petal behind their eyes; who will wait for our diva, to and fro among acts, a precise departure and
—the dance surging up from her feet, the cloak, and
—who will show that light in a single, terrifying move
In the corner again: news of war beyond recognition
—Eula’s Unborn narrator
—Nắng Chiều sung by an unnamed duo in a restaurant open entirely spilling out to the street, the motorbikes in blue fluorescence
—Yasmine, who throws her head back, will be in Lebanon
Yet, what will protect us if language falls
Pritlicje after closing is a line with me and Anon: we were dancing dead sober in the Robbov vodnjak at 2 a.m. to your Flying Lotus album; I was in love, I willed it in my dark strawberry dress
—all of Carniola permitted this, thank you
—all of me crept over the shell-lip and down the steps into water, thank you
—all of water took me and
—thank you, rose quartz from Fatima
—howlite from Fatima: do you remember swinging our bodies around in Tucson on Sylvia Street beneath the full moon, our bodies like a funnel-stone tornado; we had gone to Isaac’s party with wicker baskets on our heads
Sophia Terazawa is the author of three collections, Winter Phoenix, Anon, and the forthcoming Oracular Maladies, a finalist for the 2023 Noemi Press Book Award. Tetra Nova is her first novel.