by Yuna Kang

전화 번호^[1]. Phone call. Endless fucking rhythm. You
wanted us to be like the 90s, all hairspray-bangs and roll curl! roll
tide, beach blonde pretty, moving in backfloat agony

within mud-blue waves. you know they call it
deadman’s float? But of course you do. But of course

you made it so pretty, in striped tube, with floral bikini
(tank top and denim shorts for the other, other,) breeze
slowly billowing long, platinum, (blonde). Like a code
I cared not to crack, still I looked at you in awe, I understand

muses, I understand misogyny- sweet alyssum in stem in hand, “come
on! let’s go up!” up, up, up- tomorrow to go, you stand triumphant

tall, like a woman warrior, having conquered tourist-dappled sand dune. I
was small, it took me so long to get up there, and all the Asian-
ness of you was only evident up close- the warm dark eyes, the

roots brown and slightly white: “don’t dye your hair too much,
nuna,” you have caught me staring. “It’s killing”- and what,
what was I to say? Except that I loved you, I loved you at the beach, and

in prosaic alleys behind the doctor’s office, loved you in pampas agony-
loved how you wove limp bracelets from dead clover stems, and let me

take home the rest. I put those sweet weeds in my mouth, (bermuda
buttercups- golden wattles- watch me) fall for common yellowtufts, and
starthistles- the spiky, antitoxic- it wasn’t you that was toxic per se, but

the miasma around you of yellow imported things. 전화 번호. I
am waiting outside your door, and you pretend not to hear me. “전화 번호,”
again and again. I break, I cave, I am much too:

“Phone call for you,” and magic, your eyes flip upwards. Showtime.

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^[1] “Phone number” in Korean. Roughly pronounced as jeonhwa-beonho.

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About the Author:

Yuna Kang is a queer, half-deaf, Korean-American writer based in Northern California. She loves postcards, crows, God(x), and cats. They also prefer Fuji apples above all others.