My body trembled through the night with cold.
My teeth kept time
to their own hard music,
and no waiting
could quiet them.

It was Wednesday morning,
the eighth of April.
I had a brunch to keep
with David, who brought my first book to birth,
and Kenny, who gave it
the grace of his good word.

So I drove down from New Jersey,
seven hundred and fifty miles,
as though the road were one long descent
leading home.

And it was the morning too
of my grandson’s hundredth day.

We met in gladness.
I ate three great pancakes,
with talk enough
to sweeten every bite.

Then afterward
the body raised complaint.
It seemed as though Verdi’s Nabucco
had opened in the room,
and the Hebrew slaves were singing still
for every soul bowed down by power,
as Milan once was bowed
beneath the Austrian hand.

And now this book,
set down in print,
goes out unclothed
before the world.

Then heaven drew near
when my wife and I
held one another close,
spending happiness
as though it could not end.

I never knew
a first book of poems,
sent forth while one yet lives,
could carry such fire
and such cold.

— TaeHun Yoon, 4/20/2026