KOU SUGITA
from TRANSFER
. . .
. . .
A temple in Kyoto famous
For its mosses
Bright dark fur-like
Miniature-tree-like in-between-like
Most of the Japanese older dressed
In western collars khakis and long dresses
Were interested in photographing with mosses
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. . .
. . .
Squatting with feet flat and side to side
With admiration for moss
Looking closely at the beginnings ends of moss
Its divisions of kind blurring
How spirally arranged its leaves are
The spirals appear
Growing outwards inwards
To its own source to extend
The moss has our attention
Is superimposed over its tenders’ voices
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*** ** ***
. . .
. . .
And people have sprouted
In my lapse here and obscured its spread
Again lifted in moss’s time
The flattened
Patches of moss a foot has been
Planted is planted
The moss is fenced by rocks
Not meant to be flattened but don’t mind it
Human hour it’s counting what sight gives available
When it goes dark closing time the irritable wind chime
The temple’s cat is seen by its jingle
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*** ** ***
. . .
. . .
A temple in Hiroshima empty of tourists
Two cats befriending my lonesome for something salty
It’s new here appearing to be old
Wood beams haven’t yet soaked
Summer’s occasional rains
. . .
. . .
The temple in Hokkaido near my grandparent’s
Smaller than a suburban house
Children disperse the puddled rain
High school boys shifty-eyed who might be in love
Press their hands to their groins are looking at their ground
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*** ** ***
. . .
. . .
To exist while not fully here is to have no meeting arranged?
If I sit here on this bench restrain keying
In someone’s sense the peering is a personal window
No a sliding door
To let the whole of someone in?
Oh I want to wear a bird mask
With a long Vantablack beak
If all who pass wear these masks
Still are eyeballs and lash
Beyond those masks
There are curtains on those sliding doors
If I speak in their language there is only glass between
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*** ** ***
. . .
. . .
Not a memorial a lively place
Passed down through upkeep a pay
To engage landmark
The ticket box aged at least fifty more more
Suspect: before
The money ecosystem was there a sense
A sense of secure
There was yam there was rice there were trees
In a father’s name there is house there is neighbor
Currency as a way to organize the pulses
Currency as a way to mic a pulse
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KOU SUGITA
Kou Sugita was born in Sapporo, Japan (1994), raised in Oregon, has spent the last several years in the Los Angeles area and Tucson, and currently lives through recurring nightmares he doesn’t remember in Seattle. His work has appeared in TYPO, Juked, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, The Margins, among others, and is forthcoming from The Volta.
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A Dozen Nothing 