The Wives
“The wolves wore woman faces. I was always afraid. My father was textile rich with many wives. My mother, the youngest of them, the only one God sent a son through. I was the prize mother’s cheek was ground on washboards for, pulped mess I bloodied my mouth on to prove she was loved. The wives descended at night with all their teeth. I hid behind the paper screen, watched shadows beat shadow in the lamplight’s flex & release. Then the animal shit left at our door before dawn. Then the suppers laced with wisteria which we ate & heaved like dogs. I dreamt of leaving and I left. The impossible milk of morning made me run away. I kicked dust in the streets as kids cupped their hands in hunger, struggled with the weight of my tongue, dodged Japanese night patrol until I couldn’t. I was brought back cut & gaunt. No son of mine would bring me this shame. Both the bitch & the whelp have rotted. Fallen from favor, mother held to father’s knees saying ‘we will not go, we will not go.’ For what did we know of hunger? The wolves smothered their laughs, gathered around in their gowns of dyed silk. The night sky we stood under pulsed like something hurting.”
Caught
a girl mired in a net
between her legs a quiver
of taking she wants to untangle
her limbs split the fishhook
from the soft meat of her mouth
skeleton flower
pale vein
when wet she is briefly vanished
but that girl was me
nineteen your red sheets redder
where whetted
with whiskey
what to do with this memory?
worked open
silt in my gills trout mouth puckered and shut
the lazy turns of the ceiling fan
a thread of moonlight sang opal
in your one white hair I was frenzied by the moon
what a good girl
he must have loved having you
Just like this
outside the olive trees quivered overtaken by fruit
my girl is frigid but you—
If wet was I
complicit?
dear poison
dear quiver of unmaking
if I drank what you offered
if I let you hook your thumb against my lip
if my memory of that night flexes image like a convex mirror
then is memory wrong when it says I said no
only once?
some hours you were slow hands
Other-times animal and ravenous
my legs caught in your sheets
like refusal
rain-wet pavement walking home
some nights I dream of only water
Jihyun Yun is a Korean-American poet currently residing in Busan. A Fulbright Fellow and Pushcart Prize nominee, her poetry can be found or is forthcoming in Narrative, Fugue, River Styx, and elsewhere.