Open one jar, close another.
Fill this, empty that.
The heart is a pump, not
a receptacle of emotion.
Knowing this, I watch
the grass decompressing
in his footprint’s shape,
leaves unfolding, weak
and bruised, but rising
because they must. Someone
clears the shelf, and I think
that simply replacing the
missing is not the goal.
Move this hand, stroke
the chin, button a new
shirt, shine shoes, plead
silently. Make it go away.
The heart continues its work.
Robert Okaji
Robert Okaji is a half-Japanese Texan living in Indiana. He holds a BA in history, served without distinction in the U.S. Navy, endured the hand-to-mouth existence of a bookstore owner, toiled as a university administrator, and most recently bagged groceries for a living. He is the author of multiple chapbooks, including the 2021 Etchings Press Poetry Prize-winning My Mother's Ghost Scrubs the Floor at 2 a.m., and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art, Boston Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Wildness, Vox Populi, The Night Heron Barks, Indianapolis Review, Book of Matches, Slippery Elm and elsewhere.