Judith Becomes An Eager Iris
I woke up this morning
thinking I would take good care
of the day
but come through it with a dress teeming
with the cells and particulate matter of the soldier
I had to kill.
It’s because I followed the bird of lust
into a maze
the size of a queen-sized bed
where I became trapped between bear skin
and pewter
where the grackle whispered into me
scenes of grassy splendor
where I was running through clover and chamomile
I thought I was so clever
until I was not
he told me he was from God
so I cupped my hands in prayer
and became an eager iris
for the Adversary to pluck
to tuck into his concrete garden.
Oh God, my eyes burn
to look at you
my teeth clench into bone
I am a mere beak’s pierce away
from the charnel house
now only the bird knows
my name.
There Are Cats in Bags
I am in the back seat of a taxi
with my mom
there’s a lady in the front with a brown shopping
bag full of cats
we all get out and the lady empties the bag
onto the sidewalk
it is night and it looks like we are near the park
where I go sledding
down hills on garbage can lids
during lunch recess
returning soaking wet in socks
and canvas sneakers
there are cats in bags
passing through our lives.
What Do You Not Want to Know
“We were not lying about what happened in Tulsa.”
—Kalalea, NPR
What do you not want to know
about the burning of houses
in a town in Oklahoma
with someone’s grandmother still inside
she was in the middle of setting potatoes
and chicken necks into a skillet
like she does every sundown
what do you not want to know
about fire bombing a town
from the sky
because it could not be taken
from the ground
the burning bodies
outside of a house used for target practice
will always be there
no matter how many pages
you tear out of a textbook
if school children in Japan
are allowed to read about the piles of tongues cut
out of mouths alongside piles
of ears then maybe
we can all stop flying
into windows like the birds
who don’t know
what a window is.
Jiwon Choi is a poet, early childhood teacher, and urban gardener. She is the author of One Daughter Is Worth Ten Sons and I Used to Be Korean both published by Hanging Loose Press. Choi’s third poetry collection, A Temporary Dwelling, will be published by Spuyten Duyvil in 2024. She started her community garden’s first poetry reading series, Poets Read in the Garden, to support local writers. You can find out more about her at iusedtobekorean.com.
Image: abcnews.go.com
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Heavy Feather Review 