HAN RIVER: GWANGJIN-GU

Sun sets here like yolk spilling across a white plate,
the color bleeding, made of water.
It spends time fading, edges catching on a snagged mountain top
or a blue-lit building jutting
high above the ground.
All beautiful things must disappear.

 On your shores, I know that.

 It is autumn now.
The leaves have not become dust quite yet
but the air is cold
and everything is slowly leaving.
Couples on a tandem bicycle move
fast and far. Those walking slowly
turn into caterpillars, bodies hidden
behind layers of black puffer coat.
The dogs on the leashes are well-behaved
and do not bark to be pet.

 Everyone keeps moving —away, away.

How bare your banks have become;
how still and silent.
My breath moves like pollution
towards the sky.
How soft and pale the earth seems
by your water. 

If I disappear here,
I will disappear only into you.

Lose my reflection in a still, quiet place
pulled deep beneath the shore.

SONGPA-GU

            The Hill with Many Pine Trees

Beneath this fertile land
are the bodies of Kings,
fallen flesh of fruit from a five day market

and the felled stumps of many pine trees
like a headless monarch
like a thumbprint, half-decayed.

Here, Lotte Tower rises from concrete
lays it base in the ground
once flooded, once fought for,

 and pierces the blueness of the sky
open like a yolked egg.

 Children scream, couples with matching hats
circuit the edges
of the lake made scenic with dying flowers,

falling petals; a dusty orange, a shriveled pink.

Here I trample the witnessing earth,
the soil of buried centuries and vibrant life,
and yearn for someone alive.  

Alone, I walk with phantom hand
holding mine;
a body countries away I dream of;

 it feels as far as history
like a boat buried
below the shore, a capsule of a lonely heart.

THE DAY IN YONGSAN

I. The day in Yongsan

starts like an egg that has cracked,

sun sliding like yolk.

II. The day in Yongsan

—antique chairs and stone fountains,

unsold in store fronts.

III. The day in Yongsan

—a man walks by chain link fence

Without looking in.

IV. The day in Yongsan

—sun dips behind apartments

like heavy flowers.

V. The day in Yongsan

—aching joints and coffee stains.

Young body turns old.

VI. The day in Yongsan

Starts as the bus pulls away,

Ends as it pulls in.