i unzip my great-
grandmother’s black-
and-white lips and
reach down
to grab
the pit of
her stomach. her
eyes: panes of glass
birthed from the
mercy of stones.
the child of language
and English is
languish. i
languish
in a language
that never put
me in a chokehold, that
never slid the cold
metal coin of want
in my shoulders.
the tongue, a
hammer. i hammered
my great-grandmother’s
photograph into a word
i could not pronounce.
i pulled out
the strips of hangul from
her chest and hammered
them into the trolley tracks
next to her shadow.
her face, a
sentence in which
each period
is a bullet hole.
her face, a sentence.
she hammers
her knuckles into the
sign for
let me go
but we both know
that every butterfly
leaves a shadow of
its wings on
its chrysalis. a
reflection is never
honest in a soju
bottle, you say, and yet
we keep trying to
read it. i touched
my hand to my face
in the swollen glass
but the summer heat
wept my name away.
teach me to read
my own flesh
was what i said,
and she took the tie of
her hanbok and wrapped
it round and round my
eyes and ears before
screwing my jaw
shut. under my fingers
she laid pomegranate
seeds in bruised Braille
bodies. this is the only
way to learn. write
something on the wall
in unfermented
pomegranate juice, great-
grandmother. send me
plummeting into
the summer heat so that
i won’t have to intoxicate
myself on what i’ll throw
up later. all i ask for is
my name, next
to the little sun on
the lip of every soju bottle.
an apostrophe at the
end of every world.
Rina Olsen, a high school junior from Guam, is a fourth-generation zainichi Korean-American and the author of Third Moon Passing (Atmosphere Press, June 2023). A 2024 alum of the YoungArts program, the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program, and the John Locke Institute Summer School, she has been recognized by the John Locke Institute, Sejong Cultural Society, Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, Carl Sandburg Home, and Guam History Day. Her most recent work has appeared in The WEIGHT Journal, The Round, and Milk Candy Review. Find out more at her website: https://rinaolsen.com.