I learn from aqueducts, steeling to become a gully, this secret: mine,
for a past grievous crime haunts me; the water exhumes the body of the Enemy
and I must sweep it away. I am just a rivulet, but this rushed, surging water is
my injected motto: no body, no crime. These growing
pains — my water roars—multiply at the crossroads of old
injustices; when the flood comes, let the mountains have the body, for I
ache to perspire into ichor before my secret whistles through the air. Misbehave-
d, I press the rivulets to my face like hair, stock-still and hesitant at
the precipice. Hide the body—no, let me take it to the bottom of the ocean. This is the last
time I flow freely. I am pillage from the grave and bleed dilute memories— Revenge.*
*This poem assumes the Golden Shovel format, and utilizes “mine Enemy is growing old for I have at last Revenge” from Emily Dickinson’s “ Mine enemy is growing old.”
Taeyeon Han is a student in California. His writing appears or is forthcoming in The National Poetry Quarterly, Eunoia Review, and American Library of Poetry. He has been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, the Pulitzer Center, and finger comma toes. Other than creative writing, Taeyeon loves to read historical fiction, sing at karaoke, and find new restaurants.