Dopamine (audio only)

I can’t recall where to set the knife and spoon.
I can’t recall which side to place the napkin

or which bread plate belongs to me. Or
how to engage in benign chatter.

I can’t recall when more than one fork—
which to use first. Or what to make of this bowl of water.

I can’t see the place cards or recall any names.
The humiliation is impressive. The scorn.

No matter how much my brain “revises” the dinner

to see if the host was a family member—
I can’t recall which dish ran away with which spoon.

Kimiko Hahn

2016

This is a poem on my other’s body,
I mean, my mother’s body, I mean the one

who saved her braid of blue-black hair
in a drawer when I was little.

Meaning one I could lean against —
against not in resistance. Fuzzy dress

of wuzzy one. Red lipstick one.
Kitchen one. Her one to me,

Kimiko Hahn

2017

^{a golden shovel}
^{The whale already taken got away: the moon alone}
^—^{Yosa Buson}^{, translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato}

Kimiko Hahn

2022

Poems