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Memoir Mori
In Part One, I will introduce my mother, butcher-in-chief
feasting on her young, bones and gristle, sauté
and sizzle with toothsome glee. Day-old tabloid soup
moving you on to
Part Two where I make my escape to a liberal arts college
and become afflicted with a condition known as poetry-writing
where I Ouija-board Plath nightly for instruction on restitution
and virgin suicides.
In Part Three I seek solace in philosophy (I fuck
therefore I am) also known as impersonating Freudian slips:
you’re not a family until you’re a tragedy.
How to begin Part Four?
Cue the tall, blond Tourette’s syndrome, a foolish moth
trapped inside my self-loathing. I pull his wings right off.
Must I make meaning of my stint at the 7-Eleven roasting wieners
for pimply boys seeking nirvana in Hot Pockets and Ding Dongs?
If I leave salvation unwritten, will it come in?
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Let’s Go Out Tonight
Charging from one neck of the woods to another
the cab driver pushes our chariot from one pothole to another
over patches of pigeons while the radio bleeds the blues
“Is that Blind Lemon?” I ask
“Lightnin’ Hopkins,” he says
“But Blind Lemon liked Hopkins to play with him sometimes,” I add
“How come you know about that?” he turns to look at me
He is an older black man, forehead furrowed with Socrates’s worries
“I like the blues,” I reply
By the time we pull up to the curb John Lee Hooker is cajoling
“Let’s go out tonight!”
so I pay my fare and do just that.
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Jiwon Choi is a poet, teacher, and urban gardener. She teaches preschool at the Educational Alliance, a multi-generational non-profit located on the Lower East Side of NYC. She is a long-time gardener and coordinator for the Pacific Street Brooklyn Bear’s Community Garden located near downtown Brooklyn. She is also a poetry editor for Typehouse Literary Magazine. Jiwon is the author of One Daughter is Worth Ten Sons, published by Hanging Loose Press. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.