I stepped around the roots of oaks
and sharp small stones, waiting
for my brother in the dark.

We didn’t have a sound. We were
supposed to be quiet. The nighttime
treefrogs clung to the bark and climbed,

cicadas buckled their ribs and hissed,
and as the sounds grew loud and my own
voice stunted I began to imagine

the swish of snakes, their fanged mouths
opened wide to take me. No one came.
No human sounds of twig break

or mud slosh, no hidden sneak
of breathing. Just nighttime,
nighttime and me, the silent waiter,

the lonely wolf. If I couldn’t make a noise
and no one ever came, what would
that say? I didn’t want to know

that thought. I waited to be seen.
I swear the sun came up
with me still there, awake beneath the tree.

Published in The Interpreter’s House

“We are preaching about the Holy Mother,”
the boy says to me, in English now. I admit
feeling interest—really? holy mother?—but
when he says, “Do you have time?
Three minutes?” I reconsider.
I know what “three minutes” means
when it comes to proselytizing on the street.
I picture myself, a half hour from now,
drowning in the words I don’t know—
I tried, actually, but never got through
a memorization of Korean church language—
attempting to find reason after reason
to get away. They’ll follow me to the café,
where I intend to write a poem,
read a book, work, the things I truly love.
I step away but they persist, smiles bright.
I tried to be part of an organized religion,
but a single doctrine never stuck well to me.
I’m lonely here today, homesick, and talking
to people who won’t turn away doesn’t sound
so bad. I say okay. They begin. I don’t
understand but nod into the cold sun.
All day long I feel like crying. I fight
with my mother on the phone. I tell my husband
I can’t talk long, just because. I lie in bed
for an extra six hours but never end up falling
asleep. I’m lonely for this place already, homesick
for the world I’ll be leaving behind. I can’t stop
thinking I’ll never come back. It’s so far.
I can see why these young people choose
to spend their sunny day out on the street
preaching about God. It’s much nicer
to believe in ever than never. Now I want
to lay my head on her soft, robed lap.

Published in swamp pink

A seagull flies
thin as a pencil, drawing 
a long line across the sky.

I place my left hand
on one side and my right on the other.
For a full minute there is nothing
in the sky but the line and my two hands.

Then the seagull flies back
across the sky, taking his line
with him.

Now nothing separates my one hand
from the other.

published in The Winter Anthology (contest winner, 2023)

We mourn the start of light,
the green grass bared naked
by the afternoon sun,
the way your hands chafe
by the wooden handle of the clippers
and mine by this fray
of nylon rope that ties the tire
into a swing. We mourn
the far-off mountains
and the nearby woods
in which the long secret
of what I could never have
and the various versions
of body I gave up
stay squatted beneath a rock, 
behind the parted tree, not visible 
in the picture you took, too dark
in there. But the darkness
knows more than the light, 
so we mourn the light, with all 
the harshness it inflicts on us, 
with its overbearing wish
to be good.

Published in Josephine Quarterly

by Ahn Joo Cheol
translated by Jeanine Walker & Shim Jaekwan

Faintly remains.
Scarcely remains.

Drops of  water form inside my life
as if  I cherish a drop of light
just as love is formed inside the word love
just as the word goodbye doesn’t permeate it

it faintly lingers.
A thin part of me remains.

Sometimes inside me a full feeling arises and
inside me is almost full of things other than me but
it’s far from me. It’s forever in the distance.

Before loving, even before we fall in love
before parting
like someone broken up with I’m faintly
thinly breathing.

Even if  I look in the mirror I’m not there.
Even if  I take a picture I’m not there.
Even if  I look back strongly with my neck
I’m not there.

Even after finishing the preparations to love
like someone broken up with before it even begins
faintly I remain. It’s faint but
a drop of a clear me
forms in the middle of my life.

Translated  from the Korean

published in Poetry

He was on me, and I didn’t want him
on me. His body insisted. Next to us
in another twin bed, a hippie girl
from my Japanese class half-smiled at me.
I saw the tip of a nipple, her bare chest,
his roommate wrapped around her.
For a moment I imagined it was the 60’s
and free love, this was an orgy, it was fun.
Downstairs, it was the 90’s, and the friend
I’d come to see was still playing the drums.
I wanted to talk to him, wanted to go back
to the future, to get up. Instead, this guy,
pushing into me. The room smelled
like patchouli and sweat and the girl I knew
as Flora-san opened her mouth
in ecstasy, and I never thought to ask her later,
not in Japanese and not in English,
if she had wanted to be there, or if she, too,
had been coerced by a guy who’d said while
talking to her in the basement, in any language,
“Let’s go upstairs,” and had she also thought
“upstairs” meant where the band was,
where my friend was banging and banging
on the drums, wondering when
I would finally come?

published in The Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review

His name is Han. Or Jeon. Or Park Seonsaengnim. Or Sung-gi-ssi. Or Ju-yun-a. I don’t know his name. I don’t know his age, either, which here in Korea would determine what I call him. He doesn’t know mine. But it doesn’t matter. We’re only here to ball.

The first time I see him I’m rounding the track, trying to think of myself as a runner again. I ignore the arthritic pain in my right knee and press on. But there—right there—is the court. And a man on the court. A man, not a boy, not a student. He’s got white hair, an athletic build, and a basketball. I run the loop three more times, formulating the question in my head, the shy-me inventing reasons not to ask him to play. The mother-voice in me piping up: what have you got to lose? Either you play the sport you actually like or you just … run. So I ask him. My Korean sounds fine. He grins, gestures. We begin.

The second time is the same as the first. Generous, he only rebounds, says he doesn’t want to shoot. I run to the side of the key, hands ready. He hits me and I sink the shot. I bounce somewhere else and do it again. He always finds me. My hands love the motion. It feels great to play. I love this ball, multi-colored and worn. I love this court.

Third and he starts to put a hand in my face, a little one-on-one. We hardly speak. This is basketball. Sports. How physical we must be with each other to play the game. How playing a game transcends language and culture. Here we are, Han and me. I’m Betty. I’m Brenda. I’m Billie or Barbie or Bree. Who am I? He doesn’t know. I’m the shooter. And today, he’s shooting, too. Our bodies bump into each other several times, tough defense. We both laugh. It’s sunny outside, October, mid-October, late October. The fall keeps going on. It keeps up for us, so our fingers can take it, so the rim stays sunlit.

Afternoons are for hooping. I buy my own basketball. I stop identifying as a runner. My knee never hurts. I put in my headphones, listen to poetry podcasts while I shoot, and once in a while he shows up. He carries an equipment bag full of something for every sport, does a circuit by himself around the track. He tells me he’s an outcast, though I don’t know if the nuance is self-deprecating or just fact. One time another player comes—a student—and after a few minutes of attempted one-on-two, my friend bows out. He just doesn’t like playing with others, I realize. But he likes playing with me.

It gets a little colder. I start going to the gym. I’m lifting now and don’t have much room for cardio. My trips to the pool slow down. I never run the track. And hooping becomes less frequent.

But then I go again. I’ve eaten at the cafeteria with a colleague, another professor. I hold her elbow after lunch and gently guide her, pregnant, toward the courts. Of course she isn’t coming with me. We laugh. I go down there myself, the sun kindly blazing in its cool fall way. Some other visitors are there, two women in hijab with their toddlers, a boy and a girl. The kids are wandering around on the court. I bow, grin, take a lay-up.

My friend shows up. He’s always around. He once told me he doesn’t work, just plays. He’s missing several teeth on one side. His skills are so good I wonder if he was a professional player, now retired. But I don’t ask.

He takes a small ball out of his bag and bends down to offer it to one of the toddlers, the boy. The boy doesn’t want it.

But the girl does. She grabs the ball and hugs it. I always thought I’d have kids, but it never happened. I keep my eyes on the basket, make shot after shot, rebound carefully. I know they aren’t in danger. The moms look on. I say nothing to no one. When the baby wanders off with the ball, it’s okay. We’re alone on the court. The man squats down in front of me, palms up, ready to play.

Story, Hoops, published in HAD