For Hope | Suphil Lee Park

For Hope

Where to look.

Dusk out of​​ which tomorrow strains,

a giraffe’s neck. An infant’s mouth

where hunger hardens into incisors.

Each crisis tightens like the August

atmosphere, before you take

into account too many outliers.

How many choices become a personality?

I can’t safely say without the statistics

degree when lapses overstep the boundary.

The shrimp ravioli disagrees with me.

I’ll never know if the bee buried

headfirst in the tankard of a bluebell

is directing its butt,​​ fat

with pollen, at God on purpose.

Or if the woodpecker takes its beak

from one cedar to another

as a green, green apprentice.​​ 

Anything served atop ice cubes

disagrees with me. But I take a leap

of faith every time I order a drink.

A carpenter spider shucks

pulsing thoughts off its prey

before you stomp it to bad luck.

I’ll never know after how many stabs

to give up on trust. I’d like to believe

the topography of the universe

I’ve never travelled myself, the less

than a millionth of human life

I haven’t studied that’s been figured out

or the danger of not getting enough​​ 

sun, petri dishes stacking up​​ 

out of sight.

Most theories get replaced.

Most faiths. You know, we used to think

animals can’t feel.

I may be wrong when I say

love has nothing on a small act of kindness,

at least the true kind.

But those who say otherwise

broach their peaceful countries, childhoods

free of draft dodgers, borders drawn​​ 

at borders, even when we share

the same country

of blindfolded feelings, feeling.

I’m tired of explaining myself.

As in: I order something

with lobster, because I love

pleasure, as much

as I can, as long as I can​​ 

afford, the taste, what’s best,

with white wine. Look

where the cove smooths like a porcupine

in mating, this imagined, eye-of-the-storm

cove in a poem, I’d like to believe

in something great down there.