2005.

A black Hyundai charges down Gyeongbu Expressway.

Blind with fever, a hiccuping child struggles for breath

trying not to disintegrate in her mother’s arms in the backseat.

The car seems to run on whispers. Every passenger

urges the girl not to fall asleep – in Korea,

people chant “Fighting!” as a declaration of encouragement.

Sinking in a white-noise sea of voices telling her to stay strong,

energy fizzles out of her warm body

like the anguished brine that warns of tsunamis.

 

Poor, unsuspecting creature.

The hospital in Yongsan-gu is a dungeon to her.

She knows that in a frigid room, on a stiff-spring cot

She’ll spend her days as stone, rotting to the core.

But her cries of fear and protest do nothing to stop her mother

from unhesitatingly diving into that prison

with her child in her arms.

She is too weak to shake herself free, anyway.

 

After many hours, six injections, an IV drip,

and thirty minutes of wearing a purple silicone mask shaped like a hippo,

she finally hears the diagnosis: pneumonia.

This is the first time she can remember

ever really being in a hospital. Doctor’s office, yes, never hospital.

She feels the plaster closing in – horizontal asbestos.

Nurses’ hands closing the blinds. Little girl is five years old

and remembers she was probably born in a dungeon.

She wishes that this biotic war would outgrow its host.

She is afraid of turning into a blood clot, stuck in a hibiscus stem.

But she knows this is the only way to recovery.

Her mother sleeps in a chair on the other side of the room.

Little girl shuts her eyes and lets the snow bury her face

until she can finally re-emerge from sleep, quietly,

an ocean wave soaked into sand.