Two Names
A jamjari fluttered loafing on reeds.
Winds were warm. I caught it with my fingers
And held onto its wings as shadows passed.
I have not seen it again since, being in the city.
Brushing on my lips, a dragonfly spreads its wings.
After washing our little feet in stream,
You and I caught cicadas we kept in a fishnet.
Their sound was all we heard.
Half-naked, sunburnt, covering in tree shade.
Ones we captured we pressed till they grew
Silent. It’s been years. You had forgotten when I asked.
And I heard a coin circling in a beggar’s can.
Buildings were modern, high and wet.
I was somewhere more ghostly before we met.
Did the coin drown in the can?
Or hit the bottom before it did?
Or was it taken out with a thumb and an index finger
To be shown it was a ring?
I chewed haebaragi seeds
Till I needed cool water to clear out my mouth.
Its yellow petals, too big and ridiculous to seem real,
Grew in lands I didn’t know. I traveled.
And once, I lifted my eyes in a field of sunflowers.
Jack Jung is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His translations of Korean poet Yi Sang’s poetry and prose are published in Yi Sang: Selected Works by Wave Books. He is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Davidson College.