10.29.22 , 우리를 기억해주세요.1
When I find out, I pick up my keys to
go walking into the bleached-out sky. I wash the dishes
& let the taps run until my mirror-self fogs. I cut up fruit,
although not for the restless dead. Mostly I just sleep:
I dream that it is Halloween & that we can all be
whatever we want, even alive. The streets I love
aren’t coffins, only costumed in wreaths. The missing
rise back up from the pavement, still drinking down
the dregs of liquid summer, amniotic & alive
with it. Emily Jungmin Yoon says, and our cities today
glow with crosses like graveyards. God was imported
to these shores like any coveted object. Today, the difference
between a church & a hospital is not what we pray to or who
we pray for but how cold their bodies are. I wish
I could say I knew something was wrong. I remember
last summer, T barricading herself
in the Hamilton Hotel bathrooms, saying I’m so drunk
just leave me here, my laugh trampling
over the wide echoing mirror, listen we have to leave before
we get kicked out & on the main street when we emerged
the moon glowed crimson over our shoulders, backlit
by the neon cross of the methodist church.
My coworker who visited Seoul told me once, I was surprised
at first because your crosses were so red. Emergency beacons,
hospital lights. Red like something gone wrong.
110.29.22, please remember us. This phrase, and the poem itself, is in memory of the 158 people killed in the crowd crush that occurred over Halloween weekend in Itaewon, Seoul.
Editor(s): Luna Y., Blenda Y.
Photo Credits: Unsplash