An Adopted Korean Girl and Mother’s Blood Son
by Bo Schwabacher
I went to the grocery store in search of a moon jar.
Even the nameless streets of Seoul have their reasons.
My machinery, if I stayed in Korea, would be owed to the government.
My brother was the only baby who rented our mother’s motel room,
hung throat inside an umbilical cord, he will never know the donor who made him.
Ruler is [chibaeja]. Blood is [p’i]. Homesick is [hyangsuppyong-ui].
I don’t know which one of us feels more alien, which one more deftly enjoys
slow-roasting meat in light, drippings from another man’s fat, dented moon.
Even the nameless streets of Seoul have their reasons.
My machinery, if I stayed in Korea, would be owed to the government.
My brother was the only baby who rented our mother’s motel room,
hung throat inside an umbilical cord, he will never know the donor who made him.
Ruler is [chibaeja]. Blood is [p’i]. Homesick is [hyangsuppyong-ui].
I don’t know which one of us feels more alien, which one more deftly enjoys
slow-roasting meat in light, drippings from another man’s fat, dented moon.
Bo Schwabacher's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in CutBank, diode, Redivider, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, WomenArts Quarterly Journal, Word Riot, and elsewhere. She teaches at Northern Arizona University.