A Bridge Collapses Without Ends to Connect

Every morning, I arise with a drive

To succeed, to accomplish greatness.

Every evening, I surrender my morning’s promises

To the snug nothingness of the night

Maybe this world is just good at forgetting;

The shelves of history packed with repetitions

Repeated that repeat repetitions

Of our ceaseless amnesia.

I cannot recall

What shade of crimson I felt as my Korean father

Told me how my Japanese grandparents

Daily spurned his presence.

There is a gap in my memory

Of the exact sound of my twisting heart

When my mother told me about my Japanese grandparents’

Refusal to bless her marriage to a Korean man—

I revere these gaps in my memory

As vehemently as history refuses 

To cherish its passions.

Like the world, I adore forgetting:

My maternal grandparents 

Had soon enough disremembered

That I was sullied blood

And fell in love with me,

Slipping me きのこの山 when no one was watching.

My paternal grandparents

Lost their hatred of the oppressor 

And the centuries-long trilogy of a war:

First for rights,

Second for freedom,

Third for respect (still being fought).

All I see now are pictures of firm, gentle hands 

Relishing my baby-potato self

Beyond my love for it, 

I am grateful 

For forgetfulness. It is the reason 

For my domestic survival

As the only thread strained by two goliaths

In a perpetual tug-of-war;

A tainted branch;

A rope bridge long enough

To embrace both sides. 

Anonymous