Mailbox
By Kim Hyesoon
Translated by Don Mee Choi
Should I say that I blush as I wait? Say or not that I’m waiting to be parted? Who first created the word pure?—naming something that doesn’t exist. I send back whatever I receive like a woman sitting at a counter—what do I call someone like me?
Say that I bleed once? That my face is smeared in blood? That I’m a poor heart promptly sending out what comes in? A pale palm enters and exits my chest. Why does a primate’s hand feel like it’s coated in plastic? Is life a clear veil? I tell you bluntly, I won’t keep you.
Yell inside the incubator, Turn on the light? Say that it’s an overnight delivery? I wrap up an infant, write the address, and lick its eyes to seal them. I plaster it with stamps and mail it. Should I put a notice on the door that I’m open from 9 to 5 in order to send back the infants that keep arriving?
Say that I’m standing on the road with my chest open in a snowstorm? Should I attach the label Handle With Care and beg for my story to be delivered?
Notes:
Read the Korean-language version, "우체통."
Kim Hyesoon, "Mailbox" (Tr. by Don Mee Choi) from Phantom Pain Wings. Copyright © 2023 by Kim Hyesoon. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
