Flying Island

                                                              After the Fire Before the fire next door at Rara Avis Apartments on 417 S. Fess, the dumpster had over- flowed richly, a stinky marketplace, inviting tenants to fling overstuffed black trash bags from the windows above. The American flag serving as a shade at a glowing window bothered me some, but it became all right after the fire—flames that ravaged the second-floor corner apartments, facing away from the dumpster—blackened into eye-sockets in the skull of the building. Today, the Rara Avis dumpster has been normalized by bona fide trash: - flattened-out, stained, frozen food cartons - storm-broken tree branches - yawning styrofoam clamshell carry-out food boxes - soggy cylindrical toilet paper cores - battered, den...

                                                 Spring                                                          by Hiromi Yoshida Mud-speckled snow; clouded icicles glint a jagged fringe along SUV bumpers—                                  snow angels are whirred unwinged smudges on spongy ground;                                                             gutters gurgle, sputter last night’s rainwater; remnant Campbell’s Chunky Soup w...

Hiroshima & Nagasaki by Hiromi Yoshida The flash The crash The ash. Decimation was instantaneous—skeletons etched upon asphalt, shadows sick with radiation vomited skyward curses— The True Man hanging from the over-blossoming tree of public panic unlynched. Bio: Hiromi Yoshida teaches American Literature for the award-winning VITAL program at the Monroe County Public Library. Her poems have been published in literary magazines and journals that include Indiana Voice Journal, The Asian American Literary Review, Evergreen Review, and The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society.

Shikata ga Nai (Let It Be) by Hiromi Yoshida Stoic acceptance                     --not passive acquiescence                     --not dumb cattle herded into packed boxcars                     --not subservient Japs (as                                           though truncation diminishes self-esteem)— swallowing the bitter spittle of outrage re. E.O. 9066 like green tea without the usual ceremony. Heavy steps,                          overstuffed duffel bags— all that two arms can carry (all that the heart can carry) Shikata ga nai . Swallow, lunge forward gravel crunch [toxic gaman ] tubular chrys...

The Vacant House Next Door by Hiromi Yoshida Questions hover thickly, (gargantuan moths) tattered curtain bits framing basement windows were actually mere cobwebs in the vacant house on E. Atwater Ave. Bay windows stare sullenly into adamant sunlight, (stark contrast with Indiana University fraternity houses and the Co-Op on E. 3rd St.) avalanche of dust motes, debris of unknown years—a biohazard I dare not step into (despite the enigmatic threshold where the door once was), crumbling and festering—collapsing in upon its own precarious skeleton self—begging to be razed to the still fertile grounds. Hiromi Yoshida is a winner of multiple Indiana University Writers' Conference awards. Her poems have been published in The Asian American Literary Review, Indiana Voice Journal, Evergreen Review, and Bathtub Gin. She organized the Poets 4 Unity monthly reading series in Bloomington, Indiana, in re...

The Heart Remains by Hiromi Yoshida My heart was a broken compass again—this time, propelling me away from Annie’s memorial service site down Walnut Avenue—till I begged diners at a Chinese restaurant for GPS directions, (I was a bicycling buzzard) my own lunch their sympathetic fortune cookie hearts (paraphernalia  of necessity).  My  vigil candle  refused to light up among the others at the Unitarian Universalist Church, but when I stood at the pulpit  to read “Fishtailed Cherub,” the afternoon sun  flowered into radiance—rekindling within me Bloomington’s communal love,  and my heart was a fixed compass  (no longer the dull feast of buzzards), and Lotus bloomed before us all, curling red petals into the warm Bloomington night. Hiromi Yoshida is a winner of multiple Indiana University Writers' Conference awards. Her poems have been published in The Asian American Literary Review, Indiana Voice Journal, Evergreen Rev...

Kroger, Bloomington IN (August 2015) by Hiromi Yoshida Bike rush to Kroger— in my employee-discounted Indiana University fitness leggings and Target sports bra—for $4.99 Barefoot Pinot Grigio and possibly sushi (only if 1 pkg costs less than $6.00)—culminated in braking @ the bike rack before a window glass reflection that was narcissistically pleasing — wind blowing long fine hair in one direction—freshly shampooed and conditioned with Matrix Biolage hair care products, styled by Connie @ Perfect Illusion—I felt like a supermodel (despite my XS petite size)—the sun and the wind and my strength merging and coursing through my caffeine-fueled body in one powerful surge—pulsating outwardly from sun-saturated bodywashed pores… Directly juxtaposed with this glass reflection just around the redbrick corner with the sign reading: “ No Loitering Or Panhandling” solidly stood a woman with chunky ankles, askew skirts, wispy faded hair pulled back in a sl...

The Rabbit by Hiromi Yoshida How did the rabbit cease to be just a rabbit? After all, it wasn’t pulled out of some spuriously glittering magician’s hat to begin with. Instead, it evolved into a furry little carcass on the sidewalk of E. Atwater Ave. across from my house—speckled with buzzing flies in the noonday sun. It then became a sooty viscous mess—oozing blood and stench in 90° F heat, an environmental hazard for the City of Bloomington’s sanitation department to clean up. By the third day since its discovery, (possibly) it had melted into the sidewalk—an elongated black pancake of visceral goo (surely, I was disinclined to confirm its decomposition status despite my intensely voyeuristic curiosity). By day five or six, (possibly) it was a dark viscous stain like treacle or molasses— or a sticky shadow etched upon the sidewalk—in either case, a hairy fur...

The Ceremony Remains (For Erna Rosenfeld) by Hiromi Yoshida Bike-rush down the wrong South Adams Street dead- end to dead-end—grey October air heavy with mourning and rainstorm threat. “Is it rude to appear late for an occasion such as this?” I wondered as though each moment (I was not there) were yet another blow striking one final nail into her casket. Urgency and denial coexisted so impossibly—propelling me in all the wrong directions as though my heart were a broken compass unable to gauge the simplest way to the site of serene abjection (i.e. the Beth Shalom Gardens). Discarded funeral program pamphlets folded slightly askew with the damp of sad fingers; water for ritual handwash running sparkles; bowl of unknown Jewish ceremony implements folded carefully in dark blue linen; and the colossal casket in the designated oblong hallowed groundspace--clods of soil ritualistically scattered across its hidden surface, ...

Crow Hour in Bloomington IN by Hiromi Yoshida That dreaded hour when they start flocking together—ruffling their black rag feathers, debris       of the long winter days—scattering across the greying sky—intense with needless       exclamation (raucous cacophony), heedlessly dropping scatological calligraphies like Jackson Pollock scrawls across the sidewalks of Tenth Street leading to       Crosstown in Bloomington IN. Bio: Hiromi Yoshida has been described as one of Bloomington's "best writers" by Christopher Harter, editor of Bathtub Gin, and as one of Bloomington's "finest and most outspoken poets" by Tony Brewer, co-founder of Matrix organization. Winner of multiple Indiana University Writers' Conference awards, Hiromi Yoshida's poems have appeared in Borderline, Evergreen Review, Bathtub Gin, and the Matrix anthologies of literary and visual arts.