I do my best, reverent with remedies,
warm hands, picture of a bear with cub.
I make up stories as if the perfect character
will cure your suffering. Driving at night,
headlights on the painted lines, I try to remember
signs from any deities, owl lifting from a shadow,
lamp in a stranger’s window. An approaching car,
a beast, something fallen from a star.
prayer, it might be called
Arlene Naganawa’s full-length collection is I Dream a Nest of Foil (Kelson Books, 2024). Her chapbooks include Private Graveyard (Gribble Press), The Scarecrow Bride (Red Bird Chapbooks), The Ark and the Bear (Floating Bridge Press), and We Were Talking About When We Had Bodies (Ravenna Press). Her work appears in Thimble, The Inflectionist Review, Waxwing, La Piccioletta Barca, Calyx, and other. She has been awarded several grants from CityArts (Seatlle) and Artist Trust. She has been a Writer in the Schools, Hugo House instructor, and poetry mentor for incarcerated youth.