Inkyoo Lee

Prefiguration

What if, left alone, we redress into a season without colour.

Each winter, the sky dries up over the suburbs of Seoul

and my father coats the persimmon tree in the yard

with straw. He believes in spring, that another one is around

the corner, like the café that’s always our second choice

because the first is past and up the one-way street.

If I could ever be a child, I would ask him

how much sun would be enough to burn the straw,

then the tree—and whether spring comes that way.

He would keep quiet, pointing at the yellow: late

afternoon, when more time has passed than is left.

His hair, too, defying more and more of the light

each winter, strung like filmstrips of snow.

Inkyoo Lee is from South Korea and studies philosophy in the UK. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Shore, Rust & Moth, The Literary Canteen, Phi Magazine, and The Hanok Review. Find out more at https://inkyoolee.wordpress.com/