Poetry I workshop exercise #3: Erotic poem

Those sleepless nights when I’ve left the window open,

the chirping crickets, the soundtrack to my thoughts.

I imagine what her soft dancer’s legs must feel like rubbing against yours.

You could never resist sideways glances at

Long, silk smooth legs of passing spring-time women,

you thought I never noticed.

Four a.m. settles in and the breeze dries the tears,

cold against my cheeks.

The picture I have painted is vivid in my mind of

your fingertips traveling along the contours of her back,

goose bumps rising on her skin in response to the

slight pressure of your touch.

It isn’t just my imagination.

I play this game of images not to torture myself,

but to remember why I left.

To remember that night I sat on your bed,

tracing the circular scar on my thigh,

and you, with wicked intentions, you said to me

another girl caught your eye.

Now when I start to miss your lips,

I see them whispering fantasies in her ear,

strings of crimson words trickling down her spine,

your bodies locked together, tangled in the sheets.

And I remember that I do not miss being her,

your mistress veiled behind the curtains.

Poetry I workshop exercise #2: Family Poem

Proverbs

Father sits across from me at the kitchen table,

his chin rests on his round fist,

small, black eyes roam the mahogany surface.

His index finger scribbles invisible ink that I cannot read,

could never read.

He looks up at me with arched eyebrows,

“I have something for you.”

Father brings back a white sheet of paper,

I stare at the black lines, the boxy shapes.

“Han Mun,” he explains,

“Proverbs,” he mutters.

I decipher the jumbled English translations:

The well where the taste of water is good dries first.

Sweet swallows. Bitter spits out.

Perhaps I am too ignorant to understand,

or perhaps these words are too foreign to my American ears.

I scratch at the white paper, frustrated by these

strange characters that tell stories of my entire culture.

But, father, you never taught me to read the strokes of your pen,

how can I learn these ancient sayings?

I sit at the table, tracing the lines, again and again.

“Someday, your children will learn them for you.”