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Poetry

the white blood you shed

By Lee Seong-Bok
Translated from Korean by Eun-Gwi Chung & Myung Mi Kim

light,
a red button in the sky

(body, you tremble with cold
a white daffodil smiling inside a glacier)

light,
dropping thousands of gold threads
from the spot where it once jumped

(body, what spider
weaves your nerves and veins?)

light,
whenever you blink,
the knife that cuts you
cuts the December of forty-three years

(body, the white blood you shed
becomes frost on the window of early morning)

English

light,
a red button in the sky

(body, you tremble with cold
a white daffodil smiling inside a glacier)

light,
dropping thousands of gold threads
from the spot where it once jumped

(body, what spider
weaves your nerves and veins?)

light,
whenever you blink,
the knife that cuts you
cuts the December of forty-three years

(body, the white blood you shed
becomes frost on the window of early morning)

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