My Earliest Person

Jennifer Soong

None of this matters. It’s only supposed
to save you from yourself. None of this
matters, when I try to take it out of me into
the world, which to find I can praise
              I go out to

Lyrical drifts warped by syntax into blizzarding softness; odes to beauty, meaning, and inexperience splintered by history and grammar. An aqueous surface marbled with the lightest possible touch, lost footings arrested by change’s near-griplessness.
 
Composed across two winters between late 2022 and early 2024.