Floor is Not a Floor

Sparkly silver chains on my ankles

As soon as Mommy hatched, she dressed me in a birdcage

My feet keep sinking into the trampoline night

Like a white aurora the rabbit-shaped shadow dissipates

I bounce into the trampoline night

Whowhenwhyhowwherewhat—

I bounce up facing the inexplicable face

The shiny moonlight on my silver chains

gave birth to Mommy, raised and married her off

then made her have me, and now

turns her into a sick bedridden granny

I stretch my hands out to the moon,

Come out! Come out! I’m going to slap your face

I leave Mommy in hospice and I dance a trampoline dance

I don’t go to see Mommy, instead I dance, fighting the moon

My dance slays as I dance

My dance makes loud thumping sounds

Trampoline night

Trampoline mountain

Trampoline forest

Sink-sink-into-the-rabbit-shadow-swamp night

I’ll fight them

I’ll slay them

I’ll seduce the mountain

Look here, drink this

summer’s monsoon juice

End-of-heatwave-typhoon slush

I’ll offer it to the forest

Look here, drink this

Cool-autumn-rain mixed-fruit nectar

to seduce the giant who lives in the forest

I want to slay the space between sky and land

I want to slay everyplace except where Mommy is lying

I want to slay the rain falling like a black velvet curtain

I want to slay the geraniums under the drops of moonlight

Why did you let Mommy be born?

And why do you let her die?

I can’t take off my birdcage dress

It strangles me more each day

I’m entirely dependent on the floor

Trampoline

Does my dress bring destruction?

Bird wearing birdcage with lace curtains

Jumps

Is sorrow choreographing my dance? Or is it anxiety?

Lies begin in the morning

They do hurdles, high jumps

Lies begin at night

They fall over, do forward rolls

My silver anklets clang

They say Earth revolves and rotates

orbiting, swirling like my skirt

so why should Mommy die? Why?

Moonlight soaks me like ink, pocking my whole body

Will death stop if I slay all the moonlight?

I fight still wearing my birdcage

with forest

with mountain

with night

If I slay them all, will Mommy live?

Notes:

Read the Korean-language version, "바닥이 바닥이 아니야."

Copyright Credit: Kim Hyesoon, "Floor is Not a Floor" (Tr. by Don Mee Choi) from Phantom Pain Wings. Copyright © 2023 by Kim Hyesoon. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Doing Poetry