Kim Hyesoon

Kim Hyesoon

Monster

Translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi

I have
two legs that can make the five thousand migratory birds
landing on a reservoir take flight again
I have
smelly holes that can make all the dogs of our country howl
in the middle of the night

On my face, I have two bellows with bleeding landscapes inside them

I have
breaths that can burn out candles
exiting the cosmos one door at a time

A pigeon flies into my windshield
A big thud
yet the pigeon flies off

I unzip the long zipper that runs up my back and pull out the monster
It wiggles out
My car overflows

I hold on to the steering wheel with my zipper still undone

A child runs out to the main road
to catch a red balloon
and the child’s mommy runs out to catch her child
the sound of mommy’s wails

and the white rat swells up, blooming translucent
and when the rat’s gigantic pistil and stamen soar up to the sky
and when the rat becomes so huge that it reaches the edges of troposphere, stratosphere
the sound of mommy wailing

Earth is like a lone squealing rat

I have a virus that can bury alive a million pigs into one hole in the ground
I have ten fingers that can topple a thousand statues of Buddha’s disciples into
the hole
I have