Hyu :: In-Between
At all sides, the trains slip away from us. My sister and I play red light, green light
but with eyes closed and singing instead:
the-hi-bis-cus-sy-ria-cus-has-bloomed-a-gain!
Our mother glances at the platform clock
and us, as we now practice the art of climbing stairs
slowly, anoint each step with the shadows of scissors, wolves,
shapeshifters we call hands. It’s a quiet
and passionate affair— to dwell
in the meanwhile, with a waiting so bright
red like the beads of jujube fruits
our grandmother used to dry
out in the yard, so they would amass all
the sweetness of the world in their little bodies.
She taught me nothing is wasted
in waiting, and to be grateful for the sun,
which won’t ever hurry. Years after, she’s no longer with us.
I hum: mu-gung-hwa-kkoch-i-pieo-sseub-ni-da!
And a train nuzzles the station, as it arrives, arrives, and arrives.
El Milagro :: Edges
“This is what the sun would taste like
if stored in a fridge,” Alejandra says,
as she hands me a perfectly round
slice of pineapple, chilled,
half-dressed in a thin plastic bag.
She smiles, her face casting
an umbra, in which I am
but a visitor. Once I read each heart knows
its own bitterness,
and no one else
can share its joy. But we sit, our backs
mothered by this wall.
We: a brief intersection
of elbows, a small choir of helpless slurps—
our mouths flooding and the juice
dripping freely, dribbling down
the length of our tanned fingers,
down to dot
the sand until we reach
the middle—tough
to the touch of our teeth.
I mistake it for seed, but it’s not
seed. It’s corazón, coeur,
a core—
what brings together
a fruit’s flesh.
She eats until her hands empty,
while I don’t. It’s hard and not so sweet.
AE HEE LEE was born in South Korea, raised in Peru, and now resides in the U.S. She received her MFA from the University of Notre Dame and is currently a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her poetry has been published at the Adroit Journal, Narrative, Pleiades, and Denver Quarterly, among others.