Poetry: Three Poems by Michael Sun
Growl / I’m most Korean when I’m hungry
Minutes within entering my halmeoni’s home I am eating /
never mind that I’m not hungry / I don’t have the words to say
no thank you / I don’t have the heart / this is her bibimbap /
she has two languages to say I love you / radish and bean sprouts
and doraji and gosari and cucumber and gogi and shigeumchi
and an egg and gochujang / blessed vehicles of chamgireum /
I chew the week of her hands / I chew her season’s harvest /
the flavors and textures bind home on a spoon / I swallow
/ I have one language to say I love you / I get seconds /
I tell her again / my halmeoni says eat well as she picks
the last grains of rice from her bowl / My eemo tells me /
my halmeoni tells me to always finish my rice / When she was young
/ her mother would offer her own bowl / say I’m not hungry /
A lie / my halmeoni says she ate greedily / starving / now /
starving is a bird my halmeoni wrung to feed her family /
I try to tell her how much she means to me / how I want
to make her proud / my mouth is full / I swallow /
this is all my Korean / my halmeoni fed me / feeds me /
she is feeding my hunger / to be hungry enough to eat well
long after she is dead / to eat my grief when my children don’t visit /
when my grandchildren can’t speak my language /
save for this terrible gnawing.
Good Boy
Dear Dog, What separates us is not who she loves more,
but what our love can do.
Boy, mom says (another baby in the house),
and I trace the ache of her bent back
when she feeds you by hand.
It’s been a while since I was home,
but I can hear your barks, the clatter of your nails on tile
pacing at the door, and her first word through it,
Colby. And excited, you pee,
and she bends again to clean it.
I should remember, but I can’t hear it, the sound of
I’m proud of you, wouldn’t believe it if I did.
But Dog, have you made her cry? Spent too long at home,
and frustrated by the ways neither of you will change,
What kind of boy are you? She said. The kind who wants to live,
but reared to survive, I said, A monster.
Sometimes I feel like you think I’m a monster.
After her retreat, I dared to look at her,
at her blank face, her back now bent into the couch.
And you were there. In her lap, ignorant.
Your love, blunt and simple. To break through our mess.
To break the ache in her back. Like a stone. Like a dog.
Dog, thank you. Dog, are you taking care of her?
Are you going on walks? Her blood pressure is high.
Be good, I worry her too much.
Don’t you fucking leave her.
Dog, are you with her right now?
Please tell me what her face looks like on the phone,
when she calls me Baby, when she asks me
When are you coming home?
With thanks to and lines from Vievee Francis
Mitski Cento of Estrangement Three Ways
for my mother for myself
all-American boy my mother raised me how my mother raised me
you’re all I ever wanted to be I think I’m an all-American boy
your mother wouldn’t approve my mother wouldn’t approve
but I couldn’t help trying trying to be not even a star
I can’t regret this but I do I think I do
Author’s Note
"Good Boy" adapts lines from the poem, "Taking It," by Vievee Francis. The inspiring lines read: "What kind of girl are you? / The kind who wants to live, I said..."
"Mitski Cento of Estrangement Three Ways" utilizes lines from the song, "Your Best American Girl," by Mitski.
About Michael Sun
Michael Sun (he/him) is a Korean American poet from the suburbs of Chicago. His poems appear in HAD and Moist Poetry. He is a medical student at the University of Chicago and tweets with @theprodigal_sun.