The Ofi Press Magazine

Poem by Kou Sugita (Japan/USA)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 45

Hapa in rural Japan

In elementary school, I fell into a fresh crystal river in Hakodate. The

water, downstream it drifted. Brown slimy eels hidden inside tin cans.

You had shooting stars as you ran for another classmate. My tears washing

clean my own stars. I remember tugging at the seam of a blue blouse. An

eclipse haunting your face. Underneath, scattered salt on the avenues. You

stared at my face; footsteps in the snow and salt poured on a traveling slug.

The cold embrace of water is

                                                 ha/pa.

Kou Sugita lives in Los Angeles, CA and was born in Sapporo, Japan. A former assistant editor at the Hiram Poetry Review, His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in AAWW’s The Margins, Eunoia Review, Zoomoozophone Review, Peeking Cat Poetry, and elsewhere. He has been nominated for Best of the Net and is also a recipient of a Vachel Lindsay Prize for Poetry from Hiram College. Sugita is currently a senior at Pitzer College.