In Memoriam
WRITTEN BY ABIGAIL SONG
it is possible that in the next minute i will forget you / you’ve been seventeen for so long that your name tastes like a curdled afterthought / which i think i remember / begins with the letter / s.
so here is the verdict / that your fraying touch / unhooked / plunged deep in an unforgiving brine / of fish bone and fat / left crimson grooves / that still sting / when the tide comes in.
sometimes / when the nimbi show their underbellies / a whistling slate gray / the gentle drumming of rain-drops / my windows weep liquid trees / i / still smell san francisco.
hope is about as tangible / as clouds of reverie / curling at their corners / on the edge of this world / overlooking our recent season / a promise / mingled with a cry.
december wisps away / a strange emptiness pervades me / plum-tree fingers / gutted and deboned me / the aleatory urgency of tears / weaved into / a name.
by 8:34 every morning / i am fenced in by / off-white stucco / and wanton migraines / ghosthouse / has nothing changed.
christian denominations / i’ve changed my faith six times / they never seem to entail / reincarnation.
the golden gate bridge overlooks a swamp of kelp / ivory shells / covered in flies.
come spring / i will blossom a bouquet / of vermillion hyacinths.
a single square of sun / a foreign sense of loss peers back in.
a swarm of pollen / short of understanding
when i mourn what was never
alive.
Abigail Song is a Korean-American student from Northern California. Her work has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and Writopia Labs. She is an alumna of the Kenyon Young Writers Workshop, and is a 2023 American Voices Nominee for the Bay Area Region. Beyond writing, she is an avid gouache painter and reckless baker.