REVERSE LIGHTNING RALLY AT THE U.S. EMBASSY
after Matt Rasmussen
The president’s face on fire becomes a face
again, unburnt. Smoke rolling skyward
now caves in. Kara unclicks her lighter
& every flame is inhaled into it. We lower
the effigy. Take it apart. Guards uncircle us
running backward into the gates. Their escrima
sticks falling to their sides. We crumple protest
signs & tuck them under our T-shirts. We cross
the highway. Our backs charging into traffic.
Our lifted fists sinking. In the air, our chant
flings back at us. Imperialismo! Ibagsak!
Manila Bay spits out sunlight, flattens.
In the news, the Pentagon. Plans to airstrike
Mindanao leap into an official’s mouth.
ABOUT THE POET
The grandson of Filipino immigrants and the great-grandson of Japanese
immigrants, Troy Osaki is a poet, organizer, and attorney. Osaki is a three-
time grand slam poetry champion and has earned fellowships from
Kundiman, Hugo
House, and Jack Straw Cultural Center. He was awarded
a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy
Sargent Rosenberg Poetry fellowship from the
Poetry Foundation in 2022. A 2022–2023 critic-at-large for Poetry
Northwest, his poetry has appeared in Crazyhorse, The
Margins, Muzzle
Magazine, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He holds a
Juris
Doctor degree from the Seattle University School of Law where he interned
at
Creative Justice, an arts-based alternative to incarceration for youth in
King County.
He lives in Seattle, WA.
ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW
We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an
opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of
poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors
from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to
hear it.
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