sleepless
Esther Kim
i listen for boats brushing
the bay, sailing away like the casings
of a lemon. some years, the rain sinks
teeth into the dock. follow the boats
and you’ll find the loose ends of Korea—
vagabond eyes, ferry sink, and broken lips—
a graveyard of the tucked and forgotten.
i can still remember getting lost
in shinsegae, finding my way
to a halmoni*, her hair spilling out slowly.
she laid on those streets and seized a curl
from my head, cradled it as the horizon
holds the sun, as a discarded angel
holds her prayer. and when night
arrived, mother laid me in bed
and brushed my baby hairs away—
someday, i’ll pluck them all off. one palm
through my hair, the other against the fan, we’d dry
sweat as the rest of the city frothed in amber.
the nightly news claimed some people slept
on the beach, in the waves. i always wanted that—
to be anchored to a constellation and wait.
*Korean for ‘grandmother’
about the writer
Esther Kim is a Korean-American writer from Potomac, Maryland. Her poetry is forthcoming or published in Diode, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and SOFTBLOW, among others. A National Student Poet Semifinalist, she has been recognized by the Library of Congress, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, The Atlantic, and the Poetry Society of the UK.