A Poem by Yung Seoul Kim
Rain that lasts over four years, she says.
He responds, Women so beautiful they cause death.
Approximating Gabriel Garcia Marquez, his elaborate name
Turns. Creates its own climate, a sudden poem, consecrated
In a name. The sound of it ignites
A second awareness mysterious as air.
Footprints in the sands of coastal Chile mark
The weight of a life lived inside the heat
Of a local memory: pivots accurate near the spill of sunlight
The report of his name moves impeccable, alternating
Underneath a barrier reef left behind in a pearled
Water. This terra cotta landscape moves slow,
Svelting itself into an intensity and an intuition.
A Gabriel Garcia Marquez for her, Northernized.
Though his own name rings sprung and solid,
Simple and sedate as white linen spread flat.
Modest monosyllables. No ceremony here.
Of Gabriel’s name or a stunned envy
Either. He walks territory clear and honest
Through the open field on a western ranch.
This is where he grew up: loitering in his imagination, running
Vast and wild. Making Super 8s, honing in on the emotional
Intelligence of the horses and land. During the days
She can hear his boots, the sling of mud, knotted
Lasso for saving wayward cattle, his rough
Laugh. Private, away from the tropics and grenadine
Lush of South America, the equatorial remains
Ransomed to the North. He tells her that he’s
From several places of invasion: Scotland, Ireland, Russia, and
Mongolia, allegedly, seventeen generations removed.
Understood. Welcome, then
To the world, ignited.
Where the women remain beautiful, he says.
She responds, Where the rain lasts over four years.
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Yung Seoul Kim is a former Michener Fellow at the MFA Creative Writing program in Poetry/Fiction/Screenwriting at the University of Texas, Austin. Recent poetry has been published in Borderlands, Washington Square, Lake Effect, The Briar Cliff Review, Sulphur River Literary Review, Cricket Online Review, Seattle Review and Cranky.
