Franny Choi
Two POEMS
Jaebal
One of the men I slept with I slept with because he put
his face in his hands and pretended to cry he was walking
me back to the dorm he was nine years older he said are you
really going to make me go home by myself he said it
in the language we almost shared on a street in his country
he moved his hands up to his face and unconvincing he performed
crying he made a show of it he made sad sounds in the country
my parents left in the country that shares half its name
with the word for something like despair but heavier our feet
drunk and throbbing under street lamps there is no word
in our language for please so he used other sounds he begged
brayed and finally I said the words for fine fine let’s go
then let’s go we turned back he paid for the room the dim maroon
hum the bad shampoo and what else what else could I do he put
his warmth I knew what part was mine I learned the words
that night for feels good the word for tight under lamps pink under
my own remembered eye I made all the right awful sounds slid the knife
between the skin touching him and the rest of me and let
the rest of me do the talking she said feels good said oh
my god and she my sounds carried him to body to bed and some-
where else I still knelt at the feet of the silence pooling
on the hard ground where someone other used to be
somewhere else I was hardening and bright and filling
my own room so forgive me please forgive me when I see a man
making crying sounds and run toward myself please forgive if I slip
away if my hands please move if please I’m off and running
jaebal into the dark toward jaebal my own quiet please I beg you alone.
You’re So Paranoid
FOR JOSÉ
A wall of cops moves like a wall of water on a barge no beauty.
A wall of iron swallows the woman who falls to the ground and keeps
falling. There’s a video. The picture stays intact (again).
It’s not pretty, meaning it’s hard to watch.
When a poet says we have to keep our eyes open I know who he’s talking to
I don’t listen. I listen long enough to hate him.
If I say the woman dragged by her hair.
If I compare it.
I witnessed meaning stood by the window meaning shuddered let
hand fall gently over lips pulled coat tight tighter.
A wall of cops bucks like a frightened boar. (If I describe it.)
Will it speak. If I say it came furtive and dressed in red.
The cops think cop thoughts.
The cops move.
They walk like
a walk. Like an economy which after all is a fairy
bucking with hunger. Not pretty. Not picture.
I follow the border patrol agent through the airport thinking
fast thoughts bloodfast blood hound steps he buys
a burrito. If I say he stood alive in line
and my friends are afraid to leave their bathrooms my friends
who I love and love and. My friends who eat
from plates who plug cords into machines for singing.
(If I say a wall of men standing on my friends’ necks.) (If I describe it.)
My friends. Who slice plums illegally on soccer fields. Whose knees
move like knees into the grass. If I name the grass.
If I call sweet liquor and smoke
(if I say cloy).
If the child shrieks
as she’s swung if the sun if August if blue juice
will it talk. The cops are thinking cop thoughts.
They move. With a wall inside them. Answering
machines answering.
The window rattles and I fall to my real knees.
If I hoist my friends up so they can be seen (by whom).
If I say they are beautiful if I compare if the sun.
Touches the glass and I feel it.
I try to hear the border patrol agent order his food. I listen
long enough then walk. To my gate. I feel ashamed
and put it in my sleeve and later I make (it a picture like everything).
The wall moves like. A fairy like a
woman. Through an airport like. A wall.
If I say I watched the woman brought down by her hair and watched
the woman cry and cried. If the storm skips my door again.
If I leave to kill another goat. If I promise my crop if I paint
the wall up and down in sacred Ws if I make it. Any color.
Will someone put it in her mouth. If I close my eyes. Imagine it.
If I imagine it. If I think of something to say.
The cop speaks and I call a plum into his mouth it doesn’t shut him up.
The cop kneels in the grass below my friends, my friends
crowned with August and salt. My marigold my wave.
They laugh like a branch laughs. They make machines for singing.
If I say a palm in the small of the back.
If I say sun-warmed glass.
If I say sun-glass breaking open the gate
Franny Choi is the author of two books of poetry, Soft Science (Alice James Books, 2019) and Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody, 2014), as well as a chapbook, Death by Sex Machine (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017). She is a Kundiman Fellow, Senior News Editor for Hyphen, co-host of the podcast VS, and member of the Dark Noise Collective.