Tuesday poem #501 : Jaeyun Yoo : Empty Nest

 

 

 

 

Wednesdays after school
in the cavernous study
we deciphered hieroglyphs of mathematics

X marked the spot where we mapped
father – daughter 

until test flights over the curfew
the arthritic car piled with boxes
my bedroom pale as a skull 

next spring, I was a migratory bird stopping for a feed
I sat sun-swollen on the patio with poetry
calculus limp on my tongue
you were silently squatted on a tatami mat
windows shut to the backyard 

each year, my feathers land on foreign ground
you dig damp dark burrows

each year, I fetch tree branches for a nest
you build a wooden cross

each year, I think you are ready

to burst golden like a lotus flower
but you weave a shroud out of moss
shovel dirt on your craggy face
let the weeds grow over

 

 

 

 

Jaeyun Yoo is a Korean-Canadian poet and psychiatrist living on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples, also known as Vancouver. Her work has appeared in Canthius, The /tƐmz/ Review, Prairie Fire, Grain, CV2, EVENT and others. She is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University. She is a member of Harbour Centre 5, a collective of emerging poets. Their collaborative chapbook, Brine, was published in 2022. @jaeyunwrites on Twitter.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan