We Used Our Words We Used What Words We Had

Franny Choi

we used our words we used what words we had

to weld, what words we had we wielded, kneeled,

we knelt. & wept we wrung the wet the sweat

we wracked our lips we rang for words to ward

off sleep to warn to want ourselves. to want

the earth we mouthed it wound our vowels until

it fit, in fits the earth we mounted roused

& rocked we harped we yawned & tried to yawp

& tried to fix, affixed, we facted, felt.

we fattened fanfared anthemed hammered, felt

the words’ worth stagnate, snap in half in heat

the wane the melt what words we’d hoarded halved

& holey, porous. meanwhile tide still tide.

& we: still washed for sounds to mark. & marked.

Time-Sensitive

^{“When did the ‘present’ begin?”

—Lauren Berlant}

When the tyrant’s voice comes on the car radio, I close my eyes in an effort to slow the rate at which hopelessness enters me. With this act, I hurl myself faster toward extinction.

Every morning, I stretch, put food in my throat, and fail to forgive myself.

At night, I sit down to watch last year’s extinctions paint the wall, while next time’s fire buffers in a perpetual next time.

Franny Choi

2023

Quarantine

Because I did not have to smell the cow’s fear,
because I did not have to pin the man, watch his eyes
go feral, because I did not have to drag the stones
that formed in the child’s body, because I did not sheathe
my hands in dank soil, or skirt the machine’s battering, the needles
knitting my lower back, because when the factory collapsed

Franny Choi

2018

Poems

We Used Our Words We Used What Words We Had

More by this poet

Time-Sensitive

Hangul Abecedarian

Quarantine

Poems

Page submenu block

We Used Our Words We Used What Words We Had

More by this poet

Time-Sensitive

Hangul Abecedarian

Quarantine

Newsletter Sign Up