Three Poems by Sarp Sozdinler

The Potpourris

In the airport’s lost
and found, a woman
asks if we’ve seen
her husband. She says
he’s medium height,
business casual,
smells faintly
of cinnamon gum
and panic.

I tell her we only
found scarves, passports,
a child’s retainer.
Last week somebody
turned in a wedding cake
with one slice missing.
A man came looking
for his left shoe
he lost a decade ago.

Under the counter,
tags flutter from everything
like little white flags.
Umbrella. Headphones.
A stuffed wolf.
A jar of teeth
we’re not allowed
to open.

At lunch I eat
my sandwich beside
a box of keys.
All afternoon
they shine at me
as if they still believe
they can belong
somewhere.

*

The Ministry of Small Horses

At the ministry, they said
no, a soul cannot
be returned without its packaging.
What packaging, I said,
I was born like this.
A woman in the queue
laughed so beautifully
the windows shook as
if to laugh back. Then God came in
wearing the face of a man
who has just recovered all
his passwords, and everyone
became suddenly interested
in Him. I wanted
to tell you something
about desire, but desire
had gone awol
with a minor angel. Typical,
I said, although
you weren’t there, which
has never stopped me
before. There is no outside,
only another room
with worse paintings
and a horse in it,
small enough to be
a feeling, large enough
to disappoint
a dead kid.

*

The Bestiary

That was the Duke’s son for you,
always betting
on the wrong horse. He put
his money on the dogs
when it should’ve been the bear,
and his money on the bear when
it should’ve been the dog.
How big was it this time—
the horse, the dog, the bear
—in your stories?
How many beasts
did you slay?

Give me
a few years and it will be bigger
than an elephant,
and have bested ten dogs.

*

Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, and Pithead Chapel, among other journals. His work has been selected or nominated for anthologies including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction. He edits the literary journal The Bulb Region. He can be found online @sarpsozdinler or at sarpsozdinler.com