Aimee Seu
Aubade 15
I love our slow game
in the morning: summer light
color of whale tusk, us collapsed exactly
in our shadows so there
are no shadows. Our dreams like docked
rowboats knocking in the sway.
Scouts of my hands, before eyes’
location. I’m like a language
he starts speaking slowly
getting his bearings, feels tentatively
each syllable, only half-sure
what he means. Do hours pass drifting?
Do I surface for a moment
or dream the room?
I am finding my own body
by finding his body. Edges illumined
in glowy static. I do not know
my mother yet, today.
I do not know
my debts or my cruelty.
I say his name like a word I invented
to mean everything
I need it to: hungry and fear
and happiness and God.
Aimee Seu is a third-year Poe-Faulkner Fellow in the University of Virginia’s Creative Writing MFA Program for Poetry. Her poem “Nikki Lyn” was recipient of the 2019 UVA Academy of American Poets Prize. Her poem “The World” was a semi finalist in the 2019 New Guard Vol IX Knightville Poetry Contest judged by Richard Blanco. Her poem “17” won the Academy of American Poets Prize at Temple University in 2016. Her work has appeared or has forthcoming publications in Ninth Letter, Raleigh Review, Harpur Palate & Runestone Magazine. She is a Philadelphia native.
