Zainichi

 

1.

the way you

unlearned

unpacked foreign words

 

shed

what you could

 

ate each

soapy syllable

that fell

from your mouth

in slivered pieces

 

like water snakes

splitting your tongue in two

 

discovering

lingual inflammations

behind your lips

more betraying to self

the motherland

 

2.

the way we grew

unlearning

unfurling:

terebi    gukmin-hakgyo

sleppah    bakketsu

bento    biniru

tamanegi    tonkatsu

allereugi

enerugi

 

shedding what we could

eating soapy words

that fall from our mouths

in slivered pieces

 

splitting our tongues in two

 

no-goot    meet-ting

sogae-ting    es-line

shop-ping

oh-kay    oh-bah

oh-rai

short-dari

rong-dari

 

are you

tangkong i ni?

 

 

Star Clusters

 

Grandfather always had a soft spot for sweets.

His first memory of chocolate:

the way the molten cocoa wax from Yangkee soldiers

coated his friends’ teeth into toothless smiles.

 

When he had any, he’d chew the bubblegum even after

the sugar had been worked out of the rubber. He pressed

a mound of hardened pink onto a wall

so his brothers wouldn’t steal it by morning.

 

After the war he sold bags of beige, pillow-shaped biscuits

on the black market, but not until he’d cut open the bag, plucked out

a plastic packet of sugar in star clusters. He’d let them

disappear on his tongue as he taped the bag back good as new.

 

He carries a yellow bag full of peanut M&Ms –

colourful shells click together as he shares handfuls

with his grandchildren. Some enjoy them there and then.

Others throw away the sweet pebbles on their walk home.