Poems by Claire Jean Kim
Lake Michigan
Ten-hour drive in the yellow station wagon to Sarah’s grandparents’ farm.
Deep, unmowed grass. Blackberry bushes growing sideways and prickly.
Young Rhode Island Reds rushing in, jostling each other to get to the feed.
In the middle of the barn floor, a torn-open mouse, splayed on his back as if
floating in a pool with sunglasses. Sarah’s mom made peach cobbler a la mode,
and I thought This is what white families do. They laugh together. They have
dinner together. They eat desserts a la mode.
—————————————————–In the middle of the night,
Sarah’s brother woke me and told me to be quiet. I was eight; he was fifteen.
He’s an executive in Hollywood now, I checked. But back then the damage
was just getting started. All night long, the loons on the lake screamed
like women in trouble. The next day, it hurt to pee. On the drive home,
I sang Sounds of Silence to myself, the only song I knew all the words to.
the way I love Hektor
the way I want to drag that other one around, to see how he likes it
the way we make horse rhyme with accomplice
the way vertigo is the ground is a magnet and my face is a paper clip
the way my mother thinks the thermostat is a light switch
the way Nurse Ratched is based on an actual person, and her name is Sheila
the way the rat’s tail hung down between the hawk’s talons
the way I mourn a little for each rabbit I see
the way he knocked me down so many pegs, we had to rush-order more
the way love is not a victimless crime, or I’d have all my teeth
the way shame puts its mouth over mine
the way my father could be dead or alive
the way either way is fine
Claire Jean Kim is on the faculty at University of California, Irvine, where she teaches classes on racial justice and animal rights. She has written two award-winning books, and her third book, Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World, came out in the fall of 2023. Her poems have been published in or are forthcoming in Triquarterly, Ghost City Review, Rising Phoenix Review, Anthropocene, Terrain.org, and Tiger Moth Review.
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