From “September Roams a Vertical Passage”
1.
In the skin of love,
tinted glass and bone
utopia sets aside.
Surely, this can stand
picturing. I, Quan Âm,
mother of wretched
jewels. To you, flight.
East favoring wind.
2.
Meanwhile, diligence
takes a kilometer
walk between regimes.
Like Sebald, for whom
each novel begins
the infinite sentence,
write. Bull rope. Topaz.
Crown inlaid with bright
emerald. Fire. Fire.
3.
At the War Memorial
Chapel on campus,
remember how you
took all your clothes off
in front of everyone
during a performance?
Naked grief screaming
on both haunches down
that cold, slick aisle,
you barked like a dog.
4.
For the stone basin
where a lover brought
himself erasure,
have pity on nights
without reason. Indeed,
no match for autumn.
You could dye its fabric
red. Holy ruin.
This is Boat Country.
Rhythm, a phrase held
aloft by thin thread.
5.
Melody, sea foam.
South of Saigon, hear
of the worst goodbyes.
North, my temple, styled
teal for fidelity.
I laugh because you
can’t see me laughing.
Copyright © 2025 by Sophia Terazawa. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 4, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“In 2023, I staged a performance in the campus chapel of a university where I had been teaching for under a year. For most of the performance, I blacked out. Later, I was told that I bolted down the aisle on my hands and knees, screaming and hitting myself, which disturbed some people. This was supposed to be my book launch. Was I supposed to be palatable? Compliant and professional in the war machine of words? I couldn’t metabolize the work of being human, performing human, without dying a little. This poem goes back to that.”
—Sophia Terazawa
Sophia Terazawa
