Gilded Age

gilded age

one.

California welcomes me home. I know every West Coast dreamer

first came to search for gold or make it, as if our yellow bodies

could instead become it, alchemize into something

beautiful. If not worth saving. My mother used to say citizenship

like it was holy. Her only daughter’s spine

a bridge spanning oceans, a countdown until we could

cross the Pacific to be whatever we wanted

to be: fluent & unafraid. Owners of American gold.

two.

The most valuable thing about my body is what

the law says it can be. & so I inhabit Seoul

like it’s a temporary thing. I graduate