Two poems by Noah Arhm Choi

Hello and Goodbye

Dear voice box shaped like a violin’s neck now thickening with T,

I can’t say I’ve ever loved you unless love

means missing the teeth I gave to the tooth fairy

for how naturally they left my mouth

unless love is a polaroid and not a reel you can rewind

or repeat. I dreamed I was flat like a new sheet of paper.

I dreamed my voice was a bear, or a basement, or even

my father saying hello. If you say goodbye

to something you never loved, is it still called loss. If

you say goodbye to something you’ve never been is it still

called transition. A cow is kept in a cage the size of its body and called

veal. A cage is caught inside an animal and called a body. It is better

to be safe than sorry, safe like triple washed ecoli spinach

safe like ovaries in Texas or Arkansas or Kansas

safe like giving a knife to your sadness. If you give

a mouse a cookie it will ask for a syringe, a binder that bathes

your body in bright bliss but only if you bear

the bite of it all day. If you give a mouse a bite it will ask

you to say its name right, and loudly. If you give a mouse a right

you better teach it how to miss it when its taken

back away. If you give a mouse a way to be a mouse and not a foot

or a sound or a slice of mud, don’t ask it to be ok with a voice that squeaks

and bells like a completely different season

don’t ask if it likes its cookie just let it sit

on the greener side, having lost what it did not love, not safe

but definitely not sorry.

*originally published in Apogee

Shelter Fantasy

The world is filled with days you can’t sing

about your love in a high squeal voice off key

but today is Pride in New York City.

The air smells like glitter sweat and your second

first kiss, shedding the straws of boys you called

a crush just because that’s what everyone else called it.

You have that feeling in your chest like your throat

is sharp with fog but your mouth is open wide, smiling

at the person who bumps into you

or palms your cheek when dancing to Abba

as if a pandemic just broke

and you will take any kind of touch.

You want to build your house

around this feeling, plant asters on top

so they will bloom year after year,

build a trellis for morning glory to climb

so every day you can watch something open no matter the news

or the new laws or the door shut in your face.

There will be towers of red silvers that are impossible

to kill, lilacs purpeling everyone who walks past,

citronella because even your blood is too sweet to steal.

Call it shelter fantasy or dirt to make mistakes in

or a place to invite your friends without asking

them to quiet down. Every day is a sticky day

in June. Every day, give it over to the earth: the look

over your shoulder, the hand snaked away,

the kiss sucked back inside and get ready to sweat

and dance as if the rain falls just for us, laughing

and holding hands, naked feet

firmly on the ground.

*originally published in We the Gathered Heat

Both poems are reprinted here with permission from the author, Noah Arhm Choi, 2024.