So Many Wet Feet Everywhere

the world’s lunch spilled. on soaked streets with sewer steam rising

popping corn on a gas stove. i was listening. i was always

listening. following ounces until blues blurred. until my body

caught in cracks of RTA track. somewhere between doing laundry

and shopping for groceries grandma said we were poor. 

i map out emission reduction goals & find

in a new infrastructure improvement plan

rails of her skeleton. of all her hands papered. 

just a hundred years memory of erased past. 

i set my tear-soaked bread in the sun to dry

wives of white men tell me: this is what will make it rise.

there’s warm and warm enough & i’m supposed to know

which is right for my body in the burning bread cavity. 

i search the back of every back bedroom dresser

for socks. it’s all my time spent searching for socks

semi-clean. somewhat similar. at least enough

for my feet standing in at the bus stop seeing

all that’s walking on in the near dark of natural light.

Stephanie Choi’s poems appear or are forthcoming in New Ohio Review, Electric Literature, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. She is pursuing her MFA at the University of Utah.