translated from the Korean by Gene Png

The sound of washing rice,
peeling cucumbers,
digging into a watermelon,
a door rrrumbling shut

If I could only keep one,
which would it be?
Something I’ll never hear again
Something I hope no one has to 
If I could choose only one . . .

The sound of quiet sobs,
of the vast emptiness
above a TV left on,
fingernails dragging across dry skin,
dead cicadas crackling under a shoe

Which one?
I pondered for a while

Am I doing this right?
I asked
but there was no answer
Who snatched up all the answers?
Can’t I leave them all behind?
Silence
Someone must’ve taken off with them

The joy of not keeping
something I could keep

The sound of those asleep
breathing like the dead,

of hair sprouting from a lifeless scalp,
of stitches weaving through a discarded heart

If you could help yourself . . . to one sound in the world,
what would you do?

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