the noblewoman and the grandmother

“hello, sis!” my sister-in-law waved. we were at the Western Five Tombs, near Goyang.*

they were far. but she was there. across the crossing. she raised her hand and 

sis, it’s a thousand won to get in. 

sis, Jang Huibin is buried here.** they say she got poison. bitter. the grass on these tombs sure is wet. 

across the crossing. wearing a dress. hem fluttering. what pairs with sister-in-law? “hello, sis!” i wave back. 

i thought i put gloves on. but they were my grandmother’s hands. it’s me! raising my grand-mother’s hand, who got rashes from grass. raised her hand and 

it itched. it was the Five Tombs. 

they’re far. sunny nationwide yet 

somewhere, rain. sometimes, rain. you can head north by northwest. my sister-in-law waved her hand.

* Historic landmark in a city outside Seoul.

** Jang Huibin was queen of Korea from 1690 to 1694. King Sukjong, entranced by her famous good looks, took her as an official concubine, and after she bore him his first son, deposed his second queen, Inhyeon, and made Jang his consort. But he regretted his actions as his love waned, and as punishment for their politicking, sent Jang and her family into exile. When Queen Inhyeon, restored to her throne, died in 1701, Sukjong demanded Jang’s execution suspecting her of natural or supernatural foul play.

Related Article:

Record of the Virtue of Queen Inhyeon, Lady Min (Part 1)

Record of the Virtue of Queen Inhyeon, Lady Min (Part 2)

Record of the Virtue of Queen Inhyeon, Lady Min (Part 3)

hot on my own tail

granny’s hot on gran-gran’s heels 

behind, 

grandma, barefoot, 

circles the night 

turning and turning 

where is she the hazy night 

where is she 

gran-gran shakes off granny 

i think you’re going in circles, 

she says—and i just keep looking around, 

an alibi for my many 

barefoot nights, 

scattered when stepped on, 

nocturnal riddle 

use your head 

she says—but i’m using grandma’s head 

where’d you come from 

she says—and now i’m being interrogated: 

“i came from behind” 

how did you get here 

“i came barefoot” 

barefoot shortcut 

brashly barefoot 

brazen trespassing 

DO NOT ENTER 

past private land 

DO NOT LEAVE 

over the grandma horizon 

but i just keep strolling on 

rid of unfreedom 

where is she cramping up 

where is she night clearing 

i’m going through withdrawal 

just gotta joyride 

barefoot on your back 

she says—and with that my back crooks 

give me my cane 

she says—and i’m suddenly being helped up 

i think this is a mistake 

she says—and i tear myself away 

i’ve got a hunch 

i’ve got a hunch. i tear myself away

the great ginkgo at the temple of literature in Seoul

looks like we’ve reached the temple of literature.*

and look, 

the temple’s gate. since that night splitting seconds we’ve woken dazed. blinded. look. seems like they’re trying to unlatch the bolt. 

here: threshold. a breeze picks up. here, the temple’s floor. runs deep. look. the temple’s forbidden books. 

here: the temple’s lonely. no, wrong: we mean its lone tree, ancient tree. we’re clueless about ancient books. poring through annals. there’s 人, for “person.” no, wrong: it’s ㅅ, for “s.” with pioneers’ spirits. that means “deer.” “bright moon.” here: the temple’s folding screen. seems they’re enthralled to this excerpt. 

where are they saying it is? we’re one and the same, no you, no me. natural phenomenon of the selfsame. living feelings of the selfsame. we slide on gloves. here: temple’s precious chest. creak­ing shadow. one shadow hiding, disappearing within another. 

can you give me a kleenex? i’d like to cry.

here: the temple’s lonely. look. lonesome. no denying. rootless, they say. a ghost, you say. precisely. here: ghosts whispering. pass night’s third watch. pass silence. and pierce the din of yea and nay. gossip teems the dark. rats spread night’s words. exactly, they say. we feel wholly focused on decryption.

there’s a ghost. a ghost. emotions frantic. isolation stinging. we wipe its sweat. is it headed faraway? has it come to this temple from afar? look. here: the temple’s ink. correction: temple’s brush. cut a slash: 

there’s a ghost. a ghost. something marrowdeep. we’re shut in the mirage of our sameness. one is one, one to one. heads resting on each other’s shoulder like road buddies. look. here: the shadow of one. dawn breaks. history runs deep, they say. standing ready to leave. past the lending library. past Nakseonjae. 

look. 

we think we’ve reached the temple. here: the temple’s lone tree. the great gingko at the temple of literature in Seoul. monument no fifty-nine.

* Translator’s note: The “temple of literature” is the Munmyo (文廟), a historic shrine to Confucius and his students in Seoul on the present grounds of Sungkyunkwan University, formerly part of the royal academy on the same site. While the “mun” in the name technically refers to Confucian textual knowledge more than our modern global category of “literature,” the connection to the word “literature” (munhak) is so much more palpable in Korean that I’ve tried to bring some of that across in English. It’s also worth noting that while “Munmyo” normally goes untranslated from Korean, the site known by the cognate term 文廟 in Hanoi, Vietnam, routinely is called the “Temple of Literature,” which I borrow here.

tour

get on, they said 

someone told them to pick me up, again 

let ’em on again, they said 

and now i’m just riding a hearse 

sitting in an empty seat 

turning round the cathedral in the blank night 

rounding the rotary 

taking a tour, again 

round Jongmyo 

REVIVAL MARKET 

JOB SEEKERS 

round RESURRECTION HOUSE 

PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS 

DRAIN CLEANING 

and now i’m just spying 

inferring: 

GOLD TEETH, SILVERWARE 

WE PAY TOP PRICES 

COLLATERAL FREE LOANS 

WE FLUFF BLANKETS 

and now a sack is just sitting on my knees 

full of secrets 

shadowy creatures 

through a tunnel 

someone crying 

i don’t know you, someone said 

i know you 

good to know 

can stop 

stopping

turn at ETERNAL LIFE ADMINISTRATIVE ENTERPRISES 

night passing 

around the reservoir 

wrong turn at the tower with the dead clock

CAUTION SUDDEN CURVE 

MASONRY LANDSCAPING 

SHOESHINE COBBLER 

get off they said 

let me off i said 

someone, me 

someone, me 

and now i am grabbing the sack 

and am squeezed out 

gagglemarching evergreens 

along the streets 

their shadows gaunt 

suspicions deep within the sack 

light gleaming, 

a stoppability 

day shining, 

stoppability 

a stoppable 

and then a stoppable 

but it’s unstoppable 

unstoppability

on location

the line for Jang Huibin was long. 

strange sight. 

you wench! thy crime. thou. once every time the mechanical sound repeats. calmly, every step. costume flapping. in period footwear, pacing the grass. Jang Huibin became Youn Yuh-jung, became Lee Mi-sook, became Jeon In-hwa.* West Five Tombs. 

no script. no genealogy. you wench. left all alone on the tv series. became a stepmother. 

became Jung Sun-kyung. turned to tatters. out of breath. had to clear her own name. just one suit. couldn’t change into another. 

i couldn’t stand it. had to at least roll up her sleeves. long line. my turn faraway. underskirts thin. sweating. 

but someone from the preview finished cutting the grass of the tombs. but the tombs were tidy. no tomb for Jang Huibin. just a mound. sweat-soaked. heat’s end, cheoseo, late august. season of scorching sun. season of cooling breeze. complex scent of Jang Huibin, now anonymous. 

then the twenty-first century. Kim family. 

one suit, one step. not even an attendant. not even a handmaid. Jang Huibin became Kim Hye-soo. became Kim Tae-hee. became grandma. doomed, valiant.

but Jang Huibin had to become Jang Huibin. just had to. and the series was a series. was never going to end. the blouse unknotted. had to tie it shut. no way in edgewise for me. didn’t come close. my hands were tied.

* Almost all the women named in this poem are actresses who played Joseon-era queen Jang Huibin in different historical television series.

deep inside the house

grandma! someone is looking for a grandma. 

we press our ear to the wall. to the white wall, to the windwall. hush our breath. the cry moves on. moves on but then approaches. grandma! 

under a blanket over the floor’s warm spot the sourdough slowly swells. 

white. grandma’s white. breathing. like new life appearing, liver spots fruiting, tears bursting. 

have we sickened? been ensorcelled? 

we were rude. knew no shame. can’t show our feelings. are trapped in our flesh. do one thing but think the opposite. have to shut up. have to wait. nothing but skin over bone.

have to stay sharp. like we can’t stand it. nibbling breadcrumbs with our gums. and rinsing our mouths with freshwater. yum. mmm. have to act like we’re smacking our lips. the wall quakes. grandma! the sourdough’s rising. 

grandmother’s house runs deep. deep inside. thin walls. long halls. the echoes resound. grandma! 

bones sturdy. lodged in the marrow, 

white things. desperate. which eagerly rise and fall. 

in illusion whose outside alone remains. we rouged up. 

recovery will come. end of a life. atavistic feeling.

humoresque

a young lady was playing a harmonica. 

familiar song. a dance tune i knew. beneath the cabaret lights. as she played the harmonica— grandma! she recognized me, looked my way. 

(grandma. i’ve got Bacchus D and Bacchus F.) *

oops . . . le garçon came by. i ordered some Bacchus. for energy, to bring back my complexion. 

(D helps the young grow up. F makes the old young. grandma.) 

but there’s just one Bacchus. not two, just one. it’s been doubled! the boy offers me Bacchus. parched. before drinking, one. after, one of two. 

the young lady kept playing the harmonica. 

forbidden song. one i knew. in the gleam of the disco ball. I had to bring back my complexion. maybe i was deluded. drink D and you look happy. drink F and you look like death. 

the stage was hot. to the young lady’s harmonica, each side fine: the dance of perpetual check. parched. drink D and you’re the black pawn. drink F and you’re the white. on the brink of an ovation. 

one before you drink. then the other once you’re done. 

i kept on waiting. 

i longed to smell the girl’s harmonica-steeped spittle, and so i kept on waiting, for that dance to end.

* Korean energy drinks.

encore

we keep dancing the dance of perpetual check. 

someone’s watching. keeps watching. beneath the cabaret floodlights. we’re wearing the young lady’s dress shoes. while showing off her lovely lines and curves. we keep dancing perpetual check. 

this is the escaping foot. and there it is again. we only know one foot. not two. trapped eternally defending. as if hunting for the lost king’s foot, we ruffle the girl’s skirt. grin her smile. dancing perpetual check. 

our feet get tangled. knees ache. feel ancient. don’t even know how to pick teams. but can’t get kicked out, either. to the forbidden tune’s two beats. stop. stop moving. we’re transcending both boos and begging. 

someone’s watching. keeps watching. high ceiling. but we are higher. higher than the highest high jumps. we go higher still. 

we receive an encore, 

the young lady’s encore.

hosanna

o grandma. lend us your hands, please. 

we reverence the host. think we have fallen ill. 

how holy art thou. slashed the sign of the cross. 

with our stomachs empty. o bring us to eternal life. permitted to swallow a single piece. how holy art thou. just one more. hosanna. just a little more. i ate too much Ingestion Permissible scarfing wolfing it down was possible but the duodenum, don’toddenum . . . 

we’re high on hypostasis. we think we had been turning somersaults. 

a hat one swirl aflight. red hat. couldn’t hold back. what’s red is lies. the word wriggled, prodding the stomach two whirls, piercing the lungs with dizzying paradoxes. i wish to confess little lambs writhing three purls in the belly as the duodenum, don’toddenum . . . 

on the lives we lost still living—the duodenum, don’toddenum . . . 

we clutch our bellies. collapse into grandma’s tale. didn’t know we’d transformed, granny. rawhide stretched over public rib bones. truly. didn’t know with what prickling grace we’d twitch. what a mess. we feel as though we’ve been ensnared then sealed shut. 

hosanna. can you please pull me out. we keep waiting for our grandma’s healing hands. 

and shake our grandma’s head. and someone, with grandmother’s needle. a mess. keep pricking the fingertips. blood welling. a mess. sticking on a spell slip. a mess: 狼狽, nang and pae, names of wolves writ in red keep thronging, swarming.

grandmas with beautiful foreheads, grandmas

grandmas with beautiful foreheads, grandmas

facing each other with their beautiful foreheads 

they loosen their knotted story bindles 

unfurling, broadening, 

the moors of story lie vast 

unstoppable 

nothing not on those moors 

would you please squeeze me in 

the grandmothers squeezing me in 

patching scraps over the missing parts 

and the grandmothers of distant days to come 

hiding me, crookbacked little grannies 

grandmas never stop to take a break, grandmas 

stitching stories 

grandmothers blanketing the moors with lulla-lullabies 

grandmas with beautiful foreheads, grandmas