Six Poems

Drifting Black Hair

Deliver us from love

—Suzanne Brøgger

On the ladle catches gaping cow shank. Tunnels are formed in the        long-boiled bone.With a baby on her back, a woman was running beneath the        underpass. A head fell from the baby wrap and rolled to my        feet. Carelessly I kicked it into the river. The beggar woman was        batshit crazy and kept on running.A cow mooed from uncle's front yard. My school uniform skirt was        rolled up higher.

Someone sent me a bone. What the sender looked like I had no        idea. I grabbed my stomach laughing. Scrawny legs. Snake-        patterned skin on the bloated belly. Hope to devour a croaking        frog. Summer is there right before dark.

My constitution has changed. Beloved, entropy, excessive.Lying parallel to the floor, one is caught in the charm of fear.        Deathly pale is a beautiful color.The newborn was a mixed baby with many fine lines. I drew a line        farther than the horizon, or the crescent marks. Milk for the        little one, cereal for me. Could we have lived together? I wish        latent blue eyes germinate and other forms gradually move on to        greater oblivion.

Just pay the medical bill. Online transaction was easy. A body with        no single fingerprint on it, the pale little moon. A young couple        wraps it and disappears. What matters is the afterword. No need        to pay the fare to the baby basket.

The day when all the cows in the village headed for the pit and        it poured before seeing clouds. Oh, fluffy hair appeared and        vanished between thighs, again.Is there anything fun enough to risk my life. What's that, walking        into the river.Something round sucked into a white circle across the river.

Your Spy

Flowers are withering on the windowsillOn my windowsill, flowers are withering and scented candles are
        burning onas I lie in loose sleep

There was an umbrellain front of the door

The sound of pausing footstepsTwo pieces of cold bread in front of the doorA wet baby in a wet plastic basket in a wet plastic bag in front
        of the doorBaby is not cryingThough my milk overflows

Did your letter burn me and leave like a scented candleI really don't know the language of this countryI really don't know when I'll wake up

I keep a distance from reality—it is my congenital attitude. I don't        renew my cards and don't feel the need to ventilate my room.        Whenever someone knocks on the door I straighten my eye        mask and go back to sleep. Even if somebody without skin peeps        into my window even if the sun clings to the balcony, my pulse        keeps beating mechanically. Don't worry. I stay still like dead        skin flakes and hair in the vacuum cleaner. Only this dormancy        would continue. It is onerous for me to look up the mission date,        as troublesome as converting lunar dates. However specific, I'm        a spy dispatched by my dreams. My special skills: shaking head        sideways, being confused to the end, confounding things.

Happy Music

From the terrace of a Korean restaurant in Montreuil, we were
        looking down.Even after evening fell, the black girls on the street didn't head home.Nobody was happy there.A man from North Train Station dragged a girl by her hand and
        disappeared into the alley.We were waiting for that time, as we were watching over them until
        their parents came.

A passerby waved his hand at us. We laughed while talking about        Western men's body odor and butts and then pulled out cigarettes.The matches were wet.Nobody was happy there, only rich, temporarily pleased or laughing.

My partner was delighted to hear you would come.Perhaps talking about Incheon is like introducing a pretty friend        to a lover.

Gaëlle was born on the beach and adopted here at three, Korean age,And now works as a librarian at the Romain Rolland Library.

Without laughing, we talked about Korea in a language that wasn't        Korean. About the place she was born but had never been to,about the climate, rice, and makgeolli, endlessly, about the thingswe didn't hate.

What I can show Gaëlle, my friend, my sister, are wet paper and        wet matches in my coat.There is no flame that does not extinguish.Parents, like friends, can change, but the fact I am nothing        doesn't change.

In the corner, a Tunisian immigrant was playing the guitar.Gaëlle and I didn't dance, but after a kiss we said nothing.Happy music that is found nowhere else in this world traveled far.

A 4

When I'm going to cover my face, my legs are coming out,        when I'm going to hide my vagina, my breast shows up.I have no intention to bring up sexual arousal. They,throwing a piece of paper one by one, say, I told you Do not lose        your faceCut fit for the standard measure.

I am an indigenous in this island. I stroll naked. On the feast day,        I just wear a necklace.Suddenly on the reason that somebody, a general or a pioneer        whatever, is coming herea ban on the naked body is placed.

Chasing after a Moon bear, amidst people standingOn the streets where tanks and jeeps are passing throughYou sure?I put on the skin.I was criticized for being rude.Come here. Did you put it on as a skirt?I can't help it because it's a blood-flowing skin of a young bear.

When waving the hands as a sign of welcome"What is the name of the lake?""Get the hell out!"They wrote it down as Get-the-hell-out lake.In a few minutes, I would smile.Pulling out a skirt and hiding my faceI take a piss looking down at an official document.

Racial Discrimination

I know, you're looking at me I knowThat you're stealing glancesI sometimes know I'm beautifulI know I'm different from the woman beside you

I don't like Lunch on the Grass

I know you're looking for a chance over there on the opposite side,        I know you're hoping I'm straightforward, I know you're hoping        I'll flop naked onto my stomach, I said I KNOW, I know if I hold        on and wait then miracles will compile commemorative coins        and Asian china like diapers for me, I know the time for fish to        become seafood, I said Don't touch me pretending that you fish        and save me, I know I KNOW there is a white-haired guardian        angel baby breaking me over a frying pan, peering down on me,        or even trying to caress, I KNOW

Eating a madeleine, I watch somebody falling into the reservoir        and dyingIs this providence?Are they beautiful, people who die while saving others?

My Repairman

There is an enormous tower crane. The repairman has not come yet.Once every hour on the dot trains like rain clouds pass overhead.How do the overflowing sunlight, tears running down the chindisappear? Like the bask of crocodiles swarming out of a nightswamp, we have no idea of fear and often believe we're still alive.

When I collapsed, the thicket grew thick and like the train tracksstopping in the woods, no one arrived. There is no repairmanin this town. We, once wriggling in the pile of corpses carriedby a large truck, lost our memory before taking only a few steps.Oblivion was as easy as burying my palms in the river. Myemotions got richer as a result of torture, but out of use.

Today, I came out of the prison kitchen and went to the memorialaltar. It was students' field trip. I broke a rock in front ofSeodaemun. I smashed and cut the iron at the riverbank ladenwith fennel plants. Above my head, I raised high pipes and barbed-wire fences and then lowered them. A tower crane is rusty likea century-old playground. All those who are alive smile in thefuneral portrait.