Between
by Erin Heath 
Between
I’ll write it over again—his hand on my knee over and over, maybe another hand—I laughed because it was a joke, until he stopped
What am I supposed to do with my uncle saying You’ve traveled the most out of any of us?
By far Grammy adds.
Announce
I lived in Seoul. As if it were accomplishment, status. I say I lived in Amsa-dong and immediately I’m in my alley, the squatted man vomiting into the drain across the way. Vertical signs familiarized by the end, slowly readable.
This depression he said
after reading my “Korea poems;”
I went back to change them. Even when I was reaching for the arm of someone I didn’t particularly want,
there was snow covering the trees that day at the temple, and so—
thatched roof, evergreens
white woods
I wanted it and the mountains to remind me of home so they did.
There were no monks who spoke English; our group took the bus to town, to the movies. Rode it back and whispered on the grounds
I could write the difference between North America and Asia. “The city” and Oakland. Tonight I’d start mixing it up
a/his hand, the feeling of the hand
or the tallest building in the/a city—
memory tricked while pedaling new neighborhoods
It could be a matter of learning a neighborhood, an alley
?
Erin Heath is an MFA student at California College of the Arts. She welcomes your comments on “Between” at erinhheath[at]gmail.com.
photo by Drab Makyo
