SOPHIA TERAZAWA

from Aquarius

[ii]

The timing returns any semblance of will pushed into coins for the main altar at New Year

—drums continue regardless; not even, Cyclo suggests, a self versus you being protractible

—of the will in pieces that would destroy us: who was Love, she would will it

Smiling while shaking her head: I will never forgive you, but this is a common parable about grammar, so hold onto the tape, player

Indigo befits her breath

Well in the shape of a square meaning ‘heaven’ and ‘clarity’ put together, would the horsemen dismount

—a sharp pupil will greet them: come inside, we are waiting

—exams will range by the court’s final hour

This

—hand fluttering handsomely as all five Virtues in reverse order and who says halfway out: known from afar, you, who would be the gardener with a kind face, sweeps around the well

—taller then, however

—in flux season which arranges one particular kind of loneliness for another

Who would this call 

—Eli Peazant on his knees shouting, SAY IT

—are we thistle, cardamom crushed into fine powder bestrewn with elderflower and dried lemon peel, a bitter obfuscation even now turning beneath

—arches at Văn Miếu

—Eugenia, who would rather sleep for ten days than charm all of art into musical understanding; Rome, a parlor song which ruffles to Hanoi and Tucson, there

—Sophia on her paws shouting, SAY IT

—the best secret

Everywhere drones

—will be this, will be anthills’ grass logic, will be so still at the curb: is it not warbling, my heart on Leo’s sunroof

—will be this chest of soil which will taste, how perceptively

—drooping gardens in The Dream of the Red Chamber near Beijing will be J.’s emergency of faith, the stones about

—J. never touches pear nor the Concentrated Court, who will issue

Emit oleander 

What happens with the aspirated afternoons remaining put will cleave this sentence

—seductive hint of vanilla

—white musk in a pink horizontal bottle

Drawing back the hand will, over four frames, wrap the golden thread embroidered shoe which has fallen apart at the heel

—undone

—palindrome by recitation when half-murmured line after line, the bayou calls: free me from what I want

—because the doors look like books

—painted high as a dream

—given wrought iron or a porch to pace upon

Fleur-de-lis lapel means elevators in a bathhouse

Ofuro glimmering opal and talc will be drawn and the ending, festive; welcome home, says a sign

—which is not Ptolemy

—map of his Effects equidistant from principles swaying at the river

—shawl from sun, limestone, or blades of grass in the pasture which continue on film to be gray, for this will suggest memory at arm’s length

SAY IT

Love what is wanted cannot be a second too close

—heat off Maïwenn’s costume

—who is wanted formed from wax-matter parting his white shirt on the plank, who will extend: come here, come to me

—which, remaining naked

—J.

Come to me, will be said

Half-between verses

—a tall silhouette extinguishes its trace

—desire since

—who will needle in dye, tighten, push and push a felled cedar, core from out of Robba’s obelisk: which, what I mean by the pebbled embankment, living here with good fruit

—all my books air

—two-bedroom apartment balcony window opens on a city below; Dictée prints a feverish muse by locomotion

Enough bronze for the tourist season

—to avoid binding: will you dance with me

Who goes quiet over microphones, Cha, caesura, the Blank Room, tacked sheet, paper on magnolia

Because May or June

—simply without reason, there receives us willingly

—whose thighs like a wheel motioning fate

—whose arrival only spells Market: why would I motion

—souvenir of castle-embossed linen folded on a table, euphoric writers proposing: yes, yes, do marry me, I mean it

A fountain to each flute

Longwise in his best theory, Ptolemy who denies a pull from tetrachord

Catalogue, then ratio

High treason follows suit for the Confucianist Lê Văn Thịnh in a boat: I will cast a net on myself to prove infinity; I will cast no stick and orchid essence before you who will thunder

East in two opposing whose tiger

—may approach

—and may be whistling in her hunt

—and, I who have hunted, will be the temple’s gardener

—the jaw which reminds me now of the princess bride Palaiologina in St. Peter’s Basilica

Who will meet her Grand Prince of Moscow causing every Ivan to be songbird datum

Who will, in any event after, blend destiny’s order

—pack hairbrushes

—reincarnation as olive grove

—the sea

In any event, in Only Lovers Left Alive, Yasmine as herself

Would

—closing a circle

—will be

Who the diva permits onboard

Fhloston: with my veil, look upon Lucia who must, on her wedding night, stab the husband; I retreat

—splendor-sweet aria, the torch on a drift I will compose and be found

Flying trill

Flying among equally: lake, constellation, blood, actor, spear, and stage upon which I point to the rows

Empson’s last ambiguity fails

—neither would be soil

—latex broken into chaos, who would be understood pointing next to her stomach, a vessel star: this is my secret

—now will you take it, protect with everything you have my want

—yes, Korben seems

Usefully taken by

—sign building over the number’s atmosphere in this count to five, who will cross between us

—signing: what was my secret

Many cities I have drawn to this amid the storm shelter of a name unreal

—pencil thin, dark

—subjunctive at the kitchen with a view into another apartment

Arachnid scale from woodwinds and a solo glass harmonica

—whose will could dash on because

—whose soul fit in the dead desert rose

—whose dying off will point again: for I have hidden joy in this

—a night amorous

—nights in grass

—who have joined in the midst of fire, fire

—who has infinity cloaked shaking its head: I won’t

—Eugenia, now, the white birds; all that will come I seek and the meadow which accepts fog as a last offering or, by chance, because I have the will to love myself

—on who will tear the net, who will be banished north

—on harming its body, a lake appears formless in her dream

—the Golden Calf which wanders having been separated by dawn; whose mother will separate Hồ Dâm Đàm to write her grief anew; this separated dynasty in the fifth ruling Temple

Which rites are true

Will I, says who will join us soon on her birthday

—numerous are shoes outside the other apartment; shouts pulse of string, tabla, exaltation down

—stairs in a locked library

—someone at the keyboard plays to me and Miha: this is what I know, all I wish for you tonight, the ghazal which erases nothing but, in your absence, Faiz who will change heartache evergreen

Sophia Terazawa's third poetry book, Oracular Maladies (Noemi Press), will be published in 2026. A debut novel, Tetra Nova (Deep Vellum), in 2025.