Don Mee Choi

After you’ve gone don’t go, don’t

After you’ve come don’t come, don’t

When you depart, they close your eyes, put your hands together and cry

        don’t go, don’t go

But when you say open the door, open the door, they say don’t come, don’t

        come

They glue a paper doll onto a bamboo stick and say don’t come, don’t come

They throw your clothes into the fire and say don’t come, don’t come

That’s why you’re footless

wingless

yet all you do is fly

unable to land

You’re visible even when you hide

You know everything even without a brain

You feel so cold

even without a body

That’s why this morning the nightgown hiding under the bed

is sobbing quietly to itself

Water collects in your coffin

You’ve already left the coffin

Your head’s imprint on the moon pillow

Your body’s imprint on the cloud blanket

So after you’ve gone don’t go, don’t

So after you’ve come don’t come, don’t

Hence breath

Then breath

Next breath

Subsequent breath

Because breath

Such breath

And breath

Same breath

Thereafter breath

Thus breath

Always breath

Eventually breath

Perpetually breath

Yet breath

However breath

Therefore breath

In spite of breath

Breath till the bitter end

Death breathes and you dream but

it’s time to remove the ventilator from death

it’s time to shatter the dream with a hammer

It’s cold, for you’ve come out from a warm body

It’s bright, for you’ve come out from a dark body

It’s lonely, for you’ve lost your shadow

Icy, like soil dug out from a flower pot

Sunny, like the sunlight fish stare at beneath the sheet of ice

Hot, like when lips touch a frozen door knob

Cold again, a bulb-like heart is half frozen

Cold again, as if zero is divided by zero

                  a glass divided by glass

It’s alright, alright

for you’re already dead

The place where you’ve shed yourself, the cold arrived, drained of all the

        red from your body