I’ve been getting to know the work of poet Annie Kim. Here’s part of her poem “Post-Colonial Album: 1980” from Into the Cyclorama:
raw fish bleeding through a pile of newspapers
a skinny road with no shoulders
plane trees, fresh tar and stale bus diesel, men
riding bicycles in white cotton masks, though not
necessarily in that order
stick of rice cake burnt on one side, the frayed gloves
handing it to me red, then I’m peeling back the foil
the ice beneath the snow is yellow
hard like an ancient scab
we sing carols on the dark drive home, we have
the only car in the neighborhood, a garden and a gate
that locks us in, there is no
natural order to recollecting this
see these sunlit windowpanes
I stare out this morning, how miraculously they fit
side by side
I also love this little gem from “A Rag For My Father”:
A father is a kind of trap
you could easily fall for.
A father is a type of map
you stupidly search for.