my forest
— after gerald stern, “flexible flyer”
i will no longer let you get your hands on my matches
lest you burn my forest down even if you said
i’m sorry it was all a joke i feel guilty forgive me
this land is my father’s and i cannot afford to lose
cannot afford to stand and watch our devastation
this morning the light hits the change on the table
glowing with a perfect sort of confidence despite
the impenetrable winter atmosphere and i am moved
now i go outside and focus only on the biting cold
so it can freeze away my mouth’s memory of yours
so i can climb my mountain and forget about yours
i will not let the ice get to my eyelids and there are
better colors to wash my face in than lavender
two parallel bridges
self control and patience are virtues of the highest order
and the river is in my head nothing punctuates a poem
like the sound of a beating heart pumping palimpsestic
blood a cursed star here a crowd of crickets there and
up there that is my little flame that sustains me
after the descent it is a cigarette along the river or four
it is midnight then it is two and god has yet to forget
all glory to god he always knows better than i do
but suffering will not be spared and my palms will always
bleed from the thorns of my roses i hold one out
this is a rose just for you first from god will you take it
i give without seeking in return but sometimes i want
it has been getting too cold too fast and i just want
everything of me is in mourning for the summer
breathless and betting
to honor the madness of letting another sink in. to emerge
decrying the self. to thine own self be as true as a hidden
hand, godsent and ready to be thrust upon the table.
i know no compromises. i only dwell in memories.
within this old house there is the weekly eucharist,
the hebdomadary. the snow falls in clumps on the
sepulcher. i walk past this cemetery too often to count,
number the steps and attempt to count the stones in a sea
of souls. the soil sings a moving song and i am tempted,
of course, but i know that like a leaning book, i am slanted
and stuck and satisfied. a blessing, to be held in hallowed halls.
i return to betting, day in, day out. i am upside down; now
sprawled on the cold floor. haunting, the lilt of an old flame’s
shadow, and the slender lines of a nightingale’s sweet song.
Author’s Biography
Louise Kim is an undergraduate student at Harvard University. Their Pushcart Prize- and Best of the Net-nominated writing has been published in a number of publications, including Frontier Poetry, Chautauqua Journal, and Panoply Zine. Their debut poetry collection, Wonder is the Word, was published in May 2023.
