Floor is Not a Floor
By Kim Hyesoon
Translated by Don Mee Choi
Sparkly silver chains on my ankles
As soon as Mommy hatched, she dressed me in a birdcage
My feet keep sinking into the trampoline night
Like a white aurora the rabbit-shaped shadow dissipates
I bounce into the trampoline night
Whowhenwhyhowwherewhat—
I bounce up facing the inexplicable face
The shiny moonlight on my silver chains
gave birth to Mommy, raised and married her off
then made her have me, and now
turns her into a sick bedridden granny
I stretch my hands out to the moon,
Come out! Come out! I’m going to slap your face
I leave Mommy in hospice and I dance a trampoline dance
I don’t go to see Mommy, instead I dance, fighting the moon
My dance slays as I dance
My dance makes loud thumping sounds
Trampoline night
Trampoline mountain
Trampoline forest
Sink-sink-into-the-rabbit-shadow-swamp night
I’ll fight them
I’ll slay them
I’ll seduce the mountain
Look here, drink this
summer’s monsoon juice
End-of-heatwave-typhoon slush
I’ll offer it to the forest
Look here, drink this
Cool-autumn-rain mixed-fruit nectar
to seduce the giant who lives in the forest
I want to slay the space between sky and land
I want to slay everyplace except where Mommy is lying
I want to slay the rain falling like a black velvet curtain
I want to slay the geraniums under the drops of moonlight
Why did you let Mommy be born?
And why do you let her die?
I can’t take off my birdcage dress
It strangles me more each day
I’m entirely dependent on the floor
Trampoline
Trampoline
Does my dress bring destruction?
Bird wearing birdcage with lace curtains
Jumps
Jumps
Is sorrow choreographing my dance? Or is it anxiety?
Lies begin in the morning
They do hurdles, high jumps
Lies begin at night
They fall over, do forward rolls
My silver anklets clang
They say Earth revolves and rotates
orbiting, swirling like my skirt
so why should Mommy die? Why?
Moonlight soaks me like ink, pocking my whole body
Will death stop if I slay all the moonlight?
I fight still wearing my birdcage
with forest
with mountain
with night
If I slay them all, will Mommy live?
Notes:
Read the Korean-language version, "바닥이 바닥이 아니야."
Kim Hyesoon, "Floor is Not a Floor" (Tr. by Don Mee Choi) from Phantom Pain Wings. Copyright © 2023 by Kim Hyesoon. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
