Lit Mags
Human Dignity Is Contraband in This Camp
Three poems by Troy Osaki
Human Dignity Is Contraband in This Camp
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In January, the Pond Freezes
I look at the cold floor.
Tap my loafer on top.
It holds.
I slide to the middle
and laugh. A horse
made of fog runs
out of my face.
The ice is the kind you find
in Antarctica. We walk back.
Satoru and I take turns standing
next to the potbelly stove.
I flip through a Sears catalog—
look for ice skates. I want to slice
the frozen water. I want to glide
so fast I become snow.
I want to glide so fast
I open a portal
to the future.
The war has ended.
I open a portal
and see dad.
His handcuffs
become a butterfly
he rests
on his finger.
Wind chills my cheeks.
I look up
and at the door,
a guard. His nightly headcount.
His eyes, a pair of searchlights
burning
against our faces.
Our Piano, Missing
It’s in a warehouse. Lost.
Guarded by tigers or a moat
of piranhas. I don’t know.
We couldn’t lug it to camp.
It weighed as much
as a small sky.
At night, I still hear it.
The sound of a wedding,
a tangerine peeled in glorious heat.
This country can’t make me
forget. Every song
has a memory.
I lay in an army cot
and smell a tuxedo.
I press an F chord into my thigh.
Hum the note.
Of Neighbors in Camp
The grown-ups on our block look for their ghost lawnmowers,
but I’ve known you, Fusae, since before the war
Before I saw your wet hair freeze in January air, stepping out of the shower
Your mother’s voice sounds like bees through barrack walls
I’m glad you’re here
We sit by the fence under a glint of moonlight,
bury the last of our baby teeth
