“My Thoughts” & “Things We Love Too Much:”
by Sean Cho A.
My Thoughts
are weak: needing an image
to emerge. But every day the same sugared flakes
fall into a ceramic bowl and a bird i don’t know
finds insect treasures on the soft of the morning
ground. Last night over the phone you said
I’m coming home soon but in the dream cardinals
called the winter-bare branches home too. Now,
there’s so many things i wish i could want: the return
of prayer or the return of you. i read somewhere
that stranded mountain climbers strip themselves bare
in the mind’s last effort to trick the body to mistake
freezing for a fever: a white flag to suffering.
Things We Love Too Much:
dogs. Or if I was a dog
I would think: smells
or food or the man
who brings me food.
I wouldn’t think of love
at all. Wouldn’t know
what that means. All I
have is the return of needs.
I grew up as you grew
old. And for a long time
I needed you, and you
were hungry again,
and again. Now you’re on the couch
and I’m on the couch holding
your head up and feeding
you blended roasted chicken
on a spoon. Later we’ll both
get tired and need sleep too.
Sean Cho A. is the author of American Home (Autumn House 2021), winner of the Autumn House Publishing chapbook contest. His work can be future found or ignored in Pleiades, The Penn Review, The Massachusetts Review, Nashville Review, among others. He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of California Irvine and the Associate Editor of THRUSH Poetry Journal. Find him @phlat_soda.
Margarida Riggio is a Spanish illustrator with experience in designing posters, books, portraits and other commissioned work. You can see her work on Tumblr & Instagram.