HAN RIVER: 

you stand, trying to coax consonants

out of my currents: do you write your

hypocrisy into your poems saying soko?

one-sided—our country   has had enough of

your kind, the writers        of righteousness. 

ME:

there’s still a language i’m trying 

to speak. starting with the word 

culture—that stilted noun lifted 

from lips, anesthetized with time. 

too numbed for meaning to stick. 

HAN RIVER:

profit: is that a familiar word? you reap

your history; you learn material instead

of pain. the timeline, flow of life,

matters less to you than the tragedy

& spectacle you will make out of it. 

ME:

the phrase best of both 

worlds has been drained 

of playfulness. it is now 

meant as criteria. a five 

point rubric telling me 

how korean i am as your 

linguistics rend me into 

long strips like wet hanji. 

HAN RIVER:

my country sucked‍ ‍on cannons

to keep warm, you wrote: now what

would you know about that?

you think your self-satisfaction

grants you access      to birth? you while away

your time writing in your second 

language: even in this confession.

but      remember: you’ve written sonnets

and haikus      but never a sijo.