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.