Amy Uyematsu Poems

So by sixteen we move in packs
learn to strut and slide
in deliberate lowdown rhythm
talk in a syn/co/pa/ted beat
...

everyone loves
the disappearing
coin. a bird pulled from
...

How many years of suffering
revealed in hands like his
small and deliberate as a child's
...

A mere eyelid's distance between you and me.
It took us a long time to discover the number zero.
John's brother is afraid to go outside.
...

- rio de janeiro jardim botanico, 2009
inside this forest / the sky is invisible / as it rains all morning
so many open mouths / philodendrum and palm / bromiliad and wren
...

in season's late rain / we travel poppy-domed hills/ pilgrims' eyes
brimming / the chirp of sparrows and kids / playing well past dark
whose small throated sighs / a lover's quarrel / that blue trickster
...

call me superstitious : 9/9/9
Photo of Amy Uyematsu by Raul Contreras
time to take stock, turn a corner, or
...

There's no way to know where I start. Or end.
What appears to be outside & so obviously
true is a trick, curving like a slow-moving figure eight
that somehow turns inside out. I can try
...

l. Black Ink
In two strokes
of the brush
"flower"
...

The "Welcome" sign
still hangs above
his garden gate
...