56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Poetry Commendation Award: Words Close to the Heart

Cover of Park So-ran's poetry collection "Words Close to the Heart"

Written by Park So-ran

Translated by Ketevani Barbakadze

Words Close to the Heart

A Song Is Nothing

Absence

Naphthalene

I’m Hungry

Little Girl

Address

A Trite Day

The Room of Chance Encounter

Blue Night

The Room of Weeping

Absence

I peer into the mailbox—

a place as deep and dark as the maw of an untamed beast.

How did you know

that there’s no address here?

That there’s no home—

no flushed face throwing open the curtains,

no table glowing red,

no drowsy yawn steeped in light sleep.

That the morning has already lost its way to this place.

I peer into the mailbox at night,

thrusting my hand deep into its hungry core.

The beast clamps its jaws

on the gaunt hand of another trembling beast

and won’t let go.

Blood, cold blood flows

like a cruel prank.

How did you know,

that there’s no weeping here,

that I’ve never learned to howl?

You, the postman of lasting silence,

how,

how did you know?