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Lee Herrick
KOREAN ADOPTEE DAYDREAMS
A slow bow screeched against the E
and you were so beautiful. Somewhere
my birth mother finds God and music
she knows will be her saving moment’s
backdrop: a brave hue like the sun,
a bright light like her son
reading Eliot in California with a wife.
We should be so lucky to have these days
whose leaves bend right
on warm nights. Yes, let the good earth calm
this morning here in Korea, guns and black
hair waving in the easy wind, a father
who has finally forgotten everything.
Across the Pacific in Holland and America
we have been properly Westernized, lamenting
we never had rice with each meal or
a kisongbok made for our special day.
We master the art called dreaming.
I could teach you the history of dreams
and lamenting. Yes, a lament is a violin bow
that must go back and forth, best
accompanied by a clean piano, a clean window,
and a view of the sea of your choice.
TRUTHS
i do not eat dogs but want to tell you i do, that
i am a communist and scary/
joseph mccarthy and john ashcroft would have made good friends/
i was born in the south but want to visit the
north/ imagine borders
dissolving like a wisp from the last camel/ i cannot remember my
dreams
but suppose i dream about women with dark hair—birth mother, frieda
kahlo [lately], you/ i agree with keats and love the ode/ francesco
petracha wrote over three hundred sestinas for laura and i have
written fifteen poems about flowers/
once, in iowa city, a woman mistook me for li young lee and i was
not pissed/
i have learned to breathe/ i have lost my breath/
the grass is always greener if you remember the taste of dirt
© Lee Herrick
2007. |
