The Hush of the Very Good by Todd Boss

You can tell by how he lists 

                                          to let her

kiss him, that the getting, as he gets it,

is good. 

             It’s good in the sweetly salty,

deeply thirsty way that a sea-fogged

rain is good after a summer-long bout

of inland drought. 

                            And you know it

when you see it, don’t you? How it

drenches what’s dry, how the having 

of it quenches. 

                        There is a grassy inlet 

where your ocean meets your land, a slip

that needs a certain kind of vessel,

                                                      and

when that shapely skiff skims in at last,

trimmed bright, mast lightly flagging 

left and right, 

                      then the long, lush reeds 

of your longing part, and soft against 

the hull of that bent wood almost im-

perceptibly brushes a luscious hush 

the heart heeds helplessly—

                                          the hush 

of the very good.

"For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth, so is he for your pruning."

Choi Jeong Min by Franny Choi

in the first grade i asked my mother permission

to go by frances at school. at seven years old,

i already knew the exhaustion of hearing my name

butchered by hammerhead tongues. already knew

to let my salty gook name drag behind me 

in the sand, safely out of sight. in fourth grade 

i wanted to be a writer & worried 

about how to escape my surname — choi

is nothing if not korean, if not garlic breath,

if not seaweed & sesame & food stamps

during the lean years — could i go by f.j.c.? could i be

paper thin & raceless? dust jacket & coffee stain,

boneless rumor smoldering behind the curtain

& speaking through an ink-stained puppet?

my father ran through all his possible rechristenings — 

ian, isaac, ivan — and we laughed at each one,

knowing his accent would always give him away.

you can hear the pride in my mother’s voice

when she answers the phone this is grace, & it is 

some kind of strange grace she’s spun herself,

some lightning made of chain mail. grace is not 

her pseudonym, though everyone in my family is a poet.

these are the shields for the names we speak in the dark

to remember our darkness. savage death rites 

we still practice in the new world. myths we whisper

to each other to keep warm. my korean name

is the star my mother cooks into the jjigae

to follow home when i am lost, which is always

in this gray country, this violent foster home

whose streets are paved with shame, this factory yard

riddled with bullies ready to steal your skin

& sell it back to your mother for profit,

land where they stuff our throats with soil

& accuse us of gluttony when we learn to swallow it.

i confess. i am greedy. i think i deserve to be seen

for what i am: a boundless, burning wick. 

a minor chord. i confess: if someone has looked

at my crooked spine and called it elmwood,

i’ve accepted. if someone has loved me more

for my gook name, for my saint name,

for my good vocabulary & bad joints,

i’ve welcomed them into this house. 

i’ve cooked them each a meal with a star singing

at the bottom of the bowl, a secret ingredient

to follow home when we are lost: 

sunflower oil, blood sausage, a name

given by your dead grandfather who eventually

forgot everything he’d touched. i promise: 

i’ll never stop stealing back what’s mine.

i promise: i won’t forget again.

Home is where the Hatred is

"S/he who gives freely shall receive in kind."

"How can those who live in the light of day possibly comprehend the depths of night?

 #Wind/Pinball

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see

— Henry David Thoreau

I'm New Here