Heavy Snow, a Rented House, a Letter
Within an electric kettle the roar of waves seethed.
For ages on the sea news couldn’t reach
the deaf boats seeking the sound of water sent from a faraway land.
The eyes of a school of fish that pass through a deep abyss
are frozen stiff, I thought.
From a distant lighthouse, fire spilt into this room.
Whenever that happened, I bluely blotted my sea sickness down at the top of the page.
Peonies from the quilt rolled over my leg
and the words within the letters I wrote began to wake.
Private lives that reached a critical state snowed heavily on the side of the page.
Uncompleted letters turned to misery.
Like bottles emptied one by one
because the sad things disappeared, alone
they swung a retired ship out of retirement
and creakily returned.
In their loneliness, more letters were burned.
Like a furnace, the sea began to boil flakes of snow and
if a hand were dipped under a hot tap inside a room
inside the blood in the body, tears were silently bred.
It cannot end like this, I thought –
a mass extermination of inner life.
Are there enough tears left in the insomniac’s body
to descend into a dream?
Although one by one snowflakes disguise the lights of a town
there is love, love, on the side of the planet we can see
here, undiscovered, infinity. We divvy up our shares.
For more poetry from Kim Kyung Ju and to read the rest of Issue 30, visit our eShop to take out a subscription or buy a print or digital copy.
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