Three Poems from 생물성 (Biologicity)

JANUARY 25, 2023

 

Ears

Ears: having just a few more would be great.

Water melting into water—
within that sound,
forever in thought I wanted to sink. 


Pants Problems

I want to try your jeans on.  

They look like they were made for me—
I can’t turn away.

My feelings in shambles
as I slowly picture
my legs
in your jeans. 

I put my hands in my back pockets,
gird my knees,
lean your head
on my shoulder.

When I’m good and you’re not,
it pains me.

When I need a second face on top of mine,
will you lend me yours?

Sorry.

But my legs might suddenly fuse
like a mermaid’s.


Secrets and Lies

No one knows I’m a gymnast now.
Arms, legs stuffed into my clothes,
I walk along like no big deal.

I can only stretch my limbs out when I sleep,
an outrage, but
can skip rope ropelessly at night.
Not too shabby.

As I jump, I don’t go slack,  
but my hang time does,
just a bit.
No sudden
snapping back to myself.

This world always needs
just one more gymnast:
my heart leaps up,

an all-too-beautiful, transparent feat
that no one sees at all.

 

Published in “Issue 1: Egg” of The Dial

Shin Hae-uk (Tr. Spencer Lee-Lenfield)

SHIN HAE-UK is the author of the poetry collections Precise Arrangement, Biologicity, syzygy, and Caeciliendless; the essay collections Lives of the Unadults and Book for Just One; the novel The Oneiroelectrical Shop; and Looking Out the Window, a hybrid work of essay and fiction. She holds a doctorate in Korean literature from Korea University and currently teaches creative writing in Seoul, where she resides.

SPENCER LEE-LENFIELD is a writer and Ph.D. candidate in comparative literature at Yale, as well as an assistant editor at The Yale Review.

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