Hyejung Kook
—
Self-Portrait as Ghost
In the dark alone pissed off I piled on
black eyeliner then turned the phone
on myself glasses off unable to see what
I looked like as I took each shot my face
weirdly glowing bluish white what little I could see
behind the wild tangle of my hair I kept covering
more and more of myself obscuring everything
except my anger smoldering in the dark like the red
and black that filled the little hole in the paper wall
the traveler had made with a finger he wet
in his mouth to peek into the next room
violating the condition of his stay when he bent
his head to the peephole all he saw was inhuman red
swallowing a pinpoint of black the eye
of the woman-witch-ghost who had given him shelter
staring straight at his transgression I was afraid
of the story as I told it I have been afraid and ashamed
of my rage but last night in the shadows
the lines I drew across my face unmaking
my features until I was unrecognizable terrifying
at first all I saw in that implacable gaze
was pure black I couldn't turn away from
until I saw reflected in my pupil a white blur
a ghost I had become light pure incandescence
Hyejung Kook’s poems have most recently appeared in POETRY, Curating Home, Pleiades, The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit, and The Massachusetts Review. Other works include an essay in The Critical Flame and a chamber opera libretto. Born in Seoul, Korea, she now lives in Kansas with her husband and two children.
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