‘Montauk’, ‘Dukkha’ & ‘Rothko Room’

Suwan Choi is an artist inspired by the beauty of insects. Through vibrant, detailed work, she captured the intricate patterns and forms of these creatures, aiming to raise appreciation for their role in nature.

Montauk

I’m leaving you that place

on the shore of Long Island

where all the beautiful people sleep,

the white clothes, the surfers,

the jewelry stores a few towns over

where we bought fancy watches,

marking our time.

Will I return there when

I’m full of sleep

on the arm of another?

Perhaps, but let’s bet

the restaurant’s closed

where we’d stop 

on our way in,

the ice cream place

on its eightieth year.

You think we leave 

for places that could bring 

us generations.

We set this in a bottle 

for a hard, startled sea. 

Dukkha

There was a time

I asked, still,

after your well-being,

brought you mint tea.

But how many times

can one ask

before compassion

becomes weight,

and asking

becomes itself

a form of vanity?

Rothko Room

The shapes are more abandoned

than I remember —

older now, preoccupied.

They lean into me

in haze; my embrace

full, disarming.

The spaces between

my supine outrage, slow to settle

more solid than night.  

I am dreaming 

the stillness.

I am burning leaves

bursting in wind. 

What I misunderstood

is locked in yellow,

a mutiny. 

Eve Bainbridge is an after-hours poet whose work has appeared in multiple publications.