“‘Rest House’ is named after the Rest House in Peace [Memorial] Park in Hiroshima, a tourist information center/café across the river from where the atomic bomb the United States used to attack the people of Hiroshima exploded. The Rest House, surrounded by memorials for the dead, is filled with brochures, beverage machines; people stop to refresh themselves, use the restroom, let their minds go blank. I have been thinking about the space—the seconds, the inches, the thresholds—between atrocity and tranquility, upheaval and peace. This poem is a small, solemn gesture in a longer series of that thinking.”
—Brandon Shimoda