MISAENG (未⽣)
SERIN LEE
Eye of the misted hour grazes
the darkness, waits
for things to come into being—
itself half-being, draws half-
lived breaths from the emptiness
that wanes heavier than full.
The room’s too light for prayer,
too dark for something less—morning
isn’t freedom if it slinks back
to this, if you must be
in conversation with the world again,
turning seven ages in step.
The stillness creeps in your ears,
carved suture that swills silence
in the crook of the lopped moon.
the darkness, waits
for things to come into being—
itself half-being, draws half-
lived breaths from the emptiness
that wanes heavier than full.
The room’s too light for prayer,
too dark for something less—morning
isn’t freedom if it slinks back
to this, if you must be
in conversation with the world again,
turning seven ages in step.
The stillness creeps in your ears,
carved suture that swills silence
in the crook of the lopped moon.
ELEPHANT MAN
SERIN LEE
(AMOR) EN EL CIENAGA
SERIN LEE
In the hacienda out back
she dives past the deadweed
that bobs on the surface
of the concrete reservoir–
Las mandrágoras scream feebly and,
ever-teething,
gnaw at the sepia shoulders
as they dive and circle twice
along the stony rim,
nacreous in their submarine oblivion
to the rumbling, nicotine natter
that gurgles from the depths
of the sagged underbellies
of Bela and Belo, reclining above,
who make unspoken toasts
to all that keeps them sane from one another,
and choke their glasses with carmine fingerprints—
dyed by the swirling spirits within.
Girlie plays princess—
spins the bottle with her frog prince,
blows him a fishy kiss.
Glassed-o’er eyes reflect her cobwebbed locks
back at her. His chest balloons with love, or gas mortis,
or something.
Swimming in his formaldehyde eyes, she smiles.
It’s a look she knows well,
greets often.
she dives past the deadweed
that bobs on the surface
of the concrete reservoir–
Las mandrágoras scream feebly and,
ever-teething,
gnaw at the sepia shoulders
as they dive and circle twice
along the stony rim,
nacreous in their submarine oblivion
to the rumbling, nicotine natter
that gurgles from the depths
of the sagged underbellies
of Bela and Belo, reclining above,
who make unspoken toasts
to all that keeps them sane from one another,
and choke their glasses with carmine fingerprints—
dyed by the swirling spirits within.
Girlie plays princess—
spins the bottle with her frog prince,
blows him a fishy kiss.
Glassed-o’er eyes reflect her cobwebbed locks
back at her. His chest balloons with love, or gas mortis,
or something.
Swimming in his formaldehyde eyes, she smiles.
It’s a look she knows well,
greets often.
SERIN LEE is a senior attending Seoul Foreign School. She is an alum of the Iowa Young Writers' Studio and has received numerous awards for her poetry from the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. She currently serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief for her school's literary magazine.
