If you want to take
up space, first see
how small you are
like rocks, honey-
combs, and charcoal
anchoring, feeding,
heating. In the sky
the clouds are combed
like rabbit fur. If I
remember this, I am
not dreaming. You place
the flowered twig
behind my ear, mark
of my learning you
in bluebell, a person
small like me, but higher.
E.J. Koh won the 2016 Pleiades Press Prize for her book A LESSER LOVE. Her poems and stories have appeared in Boston Review, TriQuarterly, Southeast Review, Columbia Review and elsewhere. She accepted fellowships at The MacDowell Colony, Kundiman, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, Vermont Studio Center and the Jack Straw Writers Program. She earned her MFA at Columbia University in New York for Creative Writing and Literary Translation.