1 | 2 | INDEX

mile high cameras hover,
zoom in, dub it:
war of blacks & koreans

watch us ripped
to red tendon
for scraps in the lot
they abandoned

show latasha shot on 50 channels,
not 200 shot korean grocers
whose names & deaths
were always kept local

silence white as white silence

we have no jesse
no martin no malcolm
no al, no eloquent, rapid tongue

just fathers, thick-tongued
and children, too young to carry more
than straw broomstick and hefty bag.

all the women cry
and hurl what is not already shattered.

*

with ashes, always grief
carried in clay jars or scattered
in wings over charred territories ­

south central ­ metal husks
of burnt cadillacs. exxon, michelin
factories bare as cotton pockets.

this grocer with knotted tongue
stacks rows of bottles ­
shining liquid copper he

beats his son. no innocents here.
this customer slops in, slurs over
an Old E, no innocents here.

her hand hurls bottle and brick
for what is lost,
for what it cannot attain,
her open, laboring palm,
and the emptiness that
leans out to meet it.

his hand grips rifle on roof,
yes, for what is lost,
for what it, too, cannot attain,
the open, laboring palm,
his broken sign, burnt oranges.

god, it is a matter of survival,
of food to mouth, of notions of home and house.

*

who returns with
straw broomstick?

cooks rice that steams
untouched on the kitchen table,

slips off a mother¹s
devastated keds, slips her into bed?

two mornings after,
they march over ashes

dust licking proud ankles
30,000 koreans

sing in a language
most will never master:

we shall overcome. someday.
peace.

React >
Ready to enter the fray? Step into the Forum, or write a Letter to the Editor.
Like what you just read? Give Inthefray.com a buck.

Sa-I-Gu

Sa-I-Gu: page two

Story Index