MiJin Cho

She witnesses the virgin-torn scars of new lovers

lodging their unclipped nails into each other’s bosom.

They remind her of her once aching chest, still yet to recover.

Had she let her quaking heart settle. Had she let him come

inside with his moon-shaped eyes, she would have fled from

her perfectly paved path. Yes, she would shove her life

into a trash bag and run, like she did when she was seventeen & succumbed.

Her mother says to her, “I’ve born a child of grief,

who takes and takes until I wither.” Mother’s Busan dialect

kicks her outside with three Glad bags of her belongings.

Mother tells her, “A home is not a home without the proper respect.”

Trash, I’ve read, can travel up to three thousand miles

before taking refuge in flooding landfills.

How far, how many runs will she endure before her heart stills?