"25" by Hannah Seo

25

The quarter is in

my pocket now,

knocking

soundlessly

between my fingers.

It wants me to feel

its worth, its

weight. I will not

succumb. I will

be light and

heedless, I say, like

the day I opened

my very small

and empty hands

to the first penny.

Yes, I will stay

fresh and heedless.

And yet, and yet.

The quarter in my

pocket reminds

my hands smell like

fatigue and

under-preparedness.

I am behaving

as though the entire

year is here with

me today, like a

room you can see

fully through

its open door, one

you have already

paid to enter.

Hannah Seo is a Korean-Canadian poet and journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. They spend days writing prose with facts and straight lines, and nights unraveling every learned rule, collaging the fragments into poetry. Hannah's poetry has been published in Barzakh Magazine, The Portland Review and Open Minds Quarterly, among others.