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August 10, 2020 Poetry

Half-Life

Sun Paik

Half-Life photo

If my father decided to do it,
like he confessed, his arms flailing
towards a sky made of nothing,
would it be quiet,
or would his stomach have kept him
afloat like neonatal koi, so thin
I could forge a riverboat from his skin?
I’m trying to say this simply.
I extract metaphors from his body.
Such as, they’re playing your favorite show.
Or a draft of this where I write,
His face TV lit, a pale, 3am, x-ray.
Tell me it is possible to grieve
the still-living. Tell me the ghost I see,
carved out, hollow, floating
in the Han River, is the father
I’ve waited all my life to save.

 

 

image: Laura Gill


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