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Pica pica
who was
it who
taught you
to want
what will
not feed
you that
you can
not make
a house
by eating
a wall
From From From by Monica Youn. Copyright © 2023 by Monica Youn. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC, on behalf of Graywolf Press.
Roosevelt Island, New York City
The fourth is freedom from fear . . .
—Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
Annual Message to Congress January 6, 1941
The weed is the Nemesis of human endeavor . . .
—Henry Miller
after Martha Collins
because it is to create an acute
angle an angle shaped like a
wedge because it is to give
birth to what you already know
to be expendable after it
has cleaned after it has fed
One figure is female, the other is male.
Both are contained.
One figure is mythical, the other historical.
To the extent that one can be said to have existed at all, they occupy different millennia, different continents.
But, to the extent that one can be said to have existed at all, both figures are considered Asian—one from Colchis, one from Korea.
To mention the Asianness of the figures creates a “racial marker” in the poem.