We're getting poetic up here. It's time for another installment of the Angry Poetry Corner, a semi-regular spotlight where we present the work of various AAPI poets -- not necessarily angry poets -- curated by Cara, our Angry Asian Intern. Because you could use a little more poetry in your life.
In the corner this week, a poem by Chiwan Choi:
carpChiwan Choi is the author of two poetry collections, The Flood and Abductions. He is Editor-in-Chief at Writ Large Press, a downtown LA based small press. He also writes Literary Alchemy, a weekly column about the writing and publishing world, on Cultural Weekly.
the old men with fingers wrinkled pull
carp, straining bad backs, muscles atrophied
through years of silence, the skin of
the fish sparkles as it juts out of
the water into air, into sky, into territory
unmade to occupy. a collective waaah as it lays
limp in two stubby hands, mouth gaping and closing,
gasping at the air that is killing it.
i’m listening to my father talking on the phone
with his friend who goes fishing every week.
old korean men love to eat carp. they think it’s
medicine because it tastes like shit. they think it will help
them live forever. my father’s voice is so loud lately, how he
yells at my mother for everything that goes wrong.
this means too much to him, my marriage, this moment
in his life when he can hold my hand and pretend
that he knew i would do good one day. anyway,
they’re talking carp.
and above the cratered soil of hope in which
we have planted our godly tongues, waiting to take
root and spring new sweet life, i reach up to kill
the moth, keeping my eyes closed because mom
said i’d go blind if dust from the wings got in my eyes
and i don’t care if my eyes are small cuz i can see
everything everything under the sun.
there is this joy, you see. i thought it would make me forget
all my failures and all my crimes, but they’re right here
on my skin smooth from the south american sun.
it’s like the time i kept a broken speck of glass
buried in my foot for weeks. and when they pulled it out,
i watched the bloodied glass leave my body, i watched
the pain leave me and i started to cry because
it is too much to learn that we can carry so much pain
only to lose it.
my father’s off the phone now. he’s rubbing his hands
together. there’s a smile on his face as he closes his
eyes. i’m coming up. i am the fish. i am medicine.
i will keep my family alive longer. i will fertilize
their soil. i’m leaving the ocean of my regrets
and being held up in the air, shiny and perfect, letting
go of my body and opening my mouth to swallow,
trying to surrender to this air of contentment i am not
ready to breathe.