My Father Calls From His Chair
by Joseph Gunho Jang
건호야,
잘 먹고 있어? / 허리는 어때? / 돈 있어? / 아이고… / [ ] can’t
sleep / constantly waking / like the sun / in its own terrible light / which
scars a border / onto the surface / of [ ] fingertips. / Touch / Sense / Feel
the weight of our burning / country / the one that might’ve existed /
the sky’s light after / which your brother is named / the heft and cleave required /
of living / with a nation on your skin / under the broken yellow toenail
/ of the forgotten [ ] that carries a Marlboro / like a constellation /
meant to ward off spirits / that remind [ ] of firebombs / contorting
/ for days after [ ] birth / don’t remember / ? / the coffin of your grandfather /
don’t blink / or it’ll root / into your heart / like three hundred / ? / crying Korean children
and women / shot under a small bridge / by American soldiers / Browning
heavy machine guns and artilleries and mortars / the civilians’ breath
one hot white cloud / of 제발 / that to this day / bounds
through Seoul’s night lamps / what you can’t see / is that [ ]
traveled through them too / a small flicker / urging light
lavish in [ ] body / the massacred / continuing to live this way / [ ]
need not erase / viscerally / as the Americans / but [ ]
have been drinking / to forget about [ ] in everything
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