COPPER
YURI HAN
Mom’s stories are the same and
the kitchen is a frame of jungle
flood and unfinished things. The
floor a tiled plane made of mud,
dinner undone, silver pots rusting
in the corners of my brain—a
place for two kinds of worms--
and I hate how this side of the
house never sees the sun. Mom
is pale and has this belief that she
made me with clay and water--
cooked me right there, next to the
swallowing sink, under the
cupboard’s peeling. She says she
did an artist’s job, shaped me just
right—a brown and sloped mass
dirtying the kitchen counter. I
spilled pieces of myself onto the
floor and they were copper, she says,
a vomit of pennies. Her hands
polished with the smell of stone
and creation, parts of my spine, a
rib, a collarbone with a crack
down the middle—like turtle’s
bone she traced it, read it like holy
scribble. She wiped her hands on her
apron, no, on the kitchen walls--
smeared my ceramic marrow across
the shelves, deaf to every howling
bowl’s fall, the plates aligning themselves
on the floor into constellation, a
cosmic birth. Then she boiled an egg with
two yolks, when the kitchen dimmed a little.
the kitchen is a frame of jungle
flood and unfinished things. The
floor a tiled plane made of mud,
dinner undone, silver pots rusting
in the corners of my brain—a
place for two kinds of worms--
and I hate how this side of the
house never sees the sun. Mom
is pale and has this belief that she
made me with clay and water--
cooked me right there, next to the
swallowing sink, under the
cupboard’s peeling. She says she
did an artist’s job, shaped me just
right—a brown and sloped mass
dirtying the kitchen counter. I
spilled pieces of myself onto the
floor and they were copper, she says,
a vomit of pennies. Her hands
polished with the smell of stone
and creation, parts of my spine, a
rib, a collarbone with a crack
down the middle—like turtle’s
bone she traced it, read it like holy
scribble. She wiped her hands on her
apron, no, on the kitchen walls--
smeared my ceramic marrow across
the shelves, deaf to every howling
bowl’s fall, the plates aligning themselves
on the floor into constellation, a
cosmic birth. Then she boiled an egg with
two yolks, when the kitchen dimmed a little.
YURI HAN is a senior in high school from Tenafly, NJ. Her art and writing have appeared in Hermeneutic Chaos, The Interlochen Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. She has been recognized for her creative work by the NCTE Achievement Awards, the Scholastic Awards, and the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award. When she isn't writing or creating art, she spends time with her twin sister.
