Escape by Hyewon Cho
Mushin
A wet comforter
on the line
swayed by a breeze.
A little
of the internal
outside
drying
with complete permission
to let go any crease
from the last wash.
An Estimate of Windage in the Open Acres of a Reaped Corn Farm at the Wooded Edget
Another gathering
clouds fully drawn
a bowstring
canting toward the horizon
the buck-fir color
of sun
foraging
in the narrow
cover of birch trees
a quiver of icy air at my back
Smudging
The stream draws a blank in the fir trees.
My eyes go directly to the cut bank
where the meadow’s delicate dress
drapes to the edge of water― the place
the massive bull elk stood, stepped off of,
carefully reached down and with his pale red tongue,
drank up. No elk this time.
I almost missed the two wood ducks scurrying
their painted bodies against the slight
current in freehanded, parallel lines.
They paddled around the pink eraser shavings of the point bar.
I watched their two graphite lines soften back into stream.
The overcast sky smeared the shading
to blend it and make it
smooth.
Phenomenon of Robins
Winter-skinny on the bare road and snow-crushed grasses,
a confusion of them like a billow of gnats.
The man coming home exhausted after work
encountered them, the birds openly moving
out of the way of his car. They let him pass
like water accepting a piece of cliff.
He dreamed of the few women who loved him.
Whom, even as he sank, he thought he could love back.
Anger
About the author:
Preston Ham is a poet and school psychologist intern in Washington State where he has the privilege of helping students who are often marginalized navigate physical, mental, and spiritual boundaries.
His poems have been published in The Manastash Literary Journal.
In the artist’s words:
Hyewon Cho is a sophomore attending Korean International School in Seoul, South Korea. When she is not making artwork, her hobbies include walking her two-year-old collie and experimenting with old film cameras. She is currently building a portfolio for university.