Two Poems by Yukyung Katie Kim

 

Elegy, Ashen 

 

In her face, she shows the monotony  

of grief: white as sawn wood. Her lips 

melt as she imagines the embered strike 

of the match, the rusted rooftop  

railings gnawing around what 

she imagines—his last moments. His flesh, something  

she made more enigmatically than love, shimmering  

in memory—every June 21st, every polka-dot  

tie she wrangled around his neck before 
entering church every Sunday. It’s ash now. Ash, the bright 

yellow shoes he wore to her birthday dinner last week. 

Ash, the Mother’s Day card he once wrote  

with a broken arm. Ash, the tissues he silently nested  

into her palms on teary days. Ash, his last  

I’ll be back, mama. Another smoking lie. Ash. He believed 

his lies would send him to hell, anyways—the nicely 

folded bed sheets, the suffocating good morning  

hugs, even the cereal boxes he put back  

on the kitchen counter. He would have 

landed there by now, sipping a piña colada by a pool 

of eternal magma. But she is poised. But she is 

in place. She blinks ten seconds at a time. She exhales  

louder than the air conditioner still gawking  

on the balcony, tapping her grieving fingers  

against her thigh. She wishes she could  

follow him, ebonize in the same flames  

her son lit for himself— 

 

 

 

 

Nature Ode with Tteokbokki  

 

Gusts of mugunghwa-scented wind trickle  

through the marketplace. Around them, suburbia 

 

sweats through the Seoul summer, the diaspora 

of red pomegranate seeds glossing the Man’s cheeks 

 

with July sun. As His sweat rainbows the burning  

asphalt under His flip-flops, He points out the Woman  

 

to me as She swirls ashes with one hand, hurdles red  

paste with the other. The Woman, barely opening 

 

her eyes, smothers each ricecake, wrinkled  

fingers kissing gochujang, forehead spots like pebbles 

 

scattering along the sand. She beckons for us to taste  

her tteokbokki. We erupt: small giggles, yellow bursting 

 

out of His smile. I stand back. Cherry blossom 

after cherry blossom slithers until pink and white fills 

 

the mouth of my palm—petal tips patting  

my cheeks, pollen sprouts chirping into my pupils 

 

as the wind picks up. We knock our heads  

upwards—He, this street vendor, and I—gazing at what 

 

floats, the cherry blossoms dropping from above 

into the black eyes of the lake, staining sight  

 
with tteokbokki. I want this taste forever.

Yukyung Katie Kim is a tenth-grade student at Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts. A passionate visual artist and writer, she has a keen interest in poetry and fantastical imagery. In her free time, Yukyung enjoys playing the oboe.