,FLO
By Minal Hajratwala

Loneliness is a subtext of this first book from Wyoming native Lee Ann Roripaugh. Here is the loneliness of the Japanese-American internment camps, of Hiroshima, of being different in white America: "I'm half-and-half, and I hide / . . . Pinched / black and blue on St. Patrick's Day, / I heard her scream at my father / for not explaining things, then / she sewed me a green dress."And there are poems of redemption, a sense of home rediscovered, as in this excerpt from "Ode to Sushi."

The gleaming arc
of knife
behind the counter
smooth as Buddha's
belly . . .
Salmon roe
lines my teeth
like rubies,
burst in my mouth --
salty beads
of pomegranate.
A raw quail's egg,
color of goldenrod
slides
down my throat
into my stomach,
where tides
begin to ebb,
where the sound
of beating wings
sigh on the horizon
where my navel
rises
a white moon.