• Mirage Ocean III

Bare hands.

Into a pool no larger than the heart,
the sound of letting go slips down the ridge
where garments once rested on the back.

Even emptiness is insufficient—
past the shiver of the shoulders,
a single cry breaks loose.

Only one—
pouring into the widow’s courtyard,
a dry monsoon falling without rain.

In the dusk-swallowed marsh
where the boat has already departed,
winter comes undone, thread by thread,
until nothing remains
but the fallen path.

© TaeHun Yoon, 1980

(Note: After the May 18 Gwangju Uprising and pro-democracy movement in 1980, I gave voice to the pain of life under Chun Doo-hwan’s military dictatorship.)