Please come back while our neighborhood still resembles itself. The
white brick house is
waiting. Your grandma’s Brittany spaniel is gone, but sometimes I still
hear her phantom
bark. Remember when we gathered dead blossoms &
pinecones in my parents’ backyard?
Played restaurateur with only the unwanted as ingredients? How
did you twist the weeds
into something pretty? I need you to finish teaching me Korean. I can
only recall the word
for strawberry. And even then, my useless hands forgot the
characters’ shapes. I thought
that first taste of kimchi would tattoo my tongue, but it turns out
there was never any
visible evidence. Only the shimmery feeling. Most importantly, I
wanted to tell you—
