"Roommate, Woman" by Lee Young-ju, translated by Jae Kim

[View this email on a browser]( [Forward to a friend]( [facebook-icon]( [tumblr-icon]( [twitter-icon]( September 21, 2019 [Roommate, Woman]( [Lee Young-ju]( Translated by [Jae Kim]( [Read and listen]( to the poem in its original Korean. On waking, I see my body has been rearranged. I’m reminded of the tongue you, having cried so much, dropped under the cypress tree. From then on, you began to speak with your left hand. One of my eyes, stuck to my thigh, closed and opened toward the obsolete picture. When your ovary, full of blood, keeps moving down, you open the window. A whistle sounds. The police touches the face of the rat the cat never finished. There behind your back is my pain, isolated from my knees. You knew the house would be rearranged when we woke up—I hold your hand. While we watch the pale clouds, sitting on leaking fuel tanks, our joined hands slip out the door. You pick up one of my eyes worming under your foot. It may snow. Snow (not an eye) like the bandage around my hand, smeared in crimson light. [Like this on Facebook]( [Share via Twitter]( © 2019 Lee Young-ju and Jae Kim. Published in Poem-a-Day in partnership with Words Without Borders (wordswithoutborders.org) on September 21, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. ["Roommate, Woman" by Lee Young-ju]( About This Poem “For a few years, I lived with a friend who had lost her father. Coffee and cigarettes. We sometimes opened our windows. In our neighborhood, there were so many incidents. Police came from somewhere and went away to who knows where.” —Lee Young-ju, translated by Jae Kim [Lee Young-ju]( Lee Young-ju is the author of the poetry collection Cold Candies (Moonji Publishing, 2014). She teaches at Myongji and Kyung Hee University and lives in Seoul, South Korea. [Jae Kim]( Jae Kim is a writer from South Korea, and translator of Korean and Japanese literature. He is a PhD student in the international writers’ program at Washington University and lives in St. Louis, Missouri. [Cold Candies by Lee Young-ju]( Poetry by Young-ju [Cold Candies]( (Moonji Publishing, 2014) “Demolition Derby” by Mónica de la Torre [read-more]( “Black Snow [I came home]” Carl Adamshick [read-more]( “Tiananmen: The Aftermath” by Marilyn Chin [read-more]( Celebrating National Translation Month Today's Poem-a-Day poem is presented in partnership with [Words Without Borders]( and is a winner of their inaugural Poems in Translation Contest judged by [Mónica de la Torre](. We will feature each of the four winning translations on Poem-a-Day every Saturday in September, National Translation Month. Your Support Makes Poem-a-Day Possible Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today’s poets each weekday morning. This free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on the weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. [make a one-time donation]( [illustration]( [Small-Blue-RGB-poets.org-Logo]( Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit [Poets.org](. You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click [here](. © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038