Driving in the Downpour
By Kim Hyesoon
Translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi
My chest has dried up like a mummy’s so that I have no energy to drink sorrow,
even the smell of water is unbearable.
While the cars speed over the puddles of water leaving their elongated red tail lights
behind them, why am I going over the Andes alone under the blazing sun? Why are the
birds flying out from the flaming hat of the western sky? Why is the face of the mummy
in the Lima Museum wet even though it’s dead?
Even at night my car’s windshield wipers place a cold wet towel on my forehead, and
yet why am I still going over the Andes where not even a single patch of green can
grow because it is too high up here? Why is this mountain range endless even when I
keep going over it again and again? Why does the mummy still clasp its dried-up chest
with its arms? Why are the mummy’s fingers wet like clay being kneaded on the potter’s
wheel that has momentarily stopped spinning?
Why is the car at a standstill like a toppled water glass as the raindrops on top of its hood
quickly bloom then break apart and rise again like a crown made of water? Why did the
car stop moving and stand idly at the street corner? Why did the mummy turn its head
sideways and keep still in the middle of going over the Andes where the hot snowfall
never gets turned off?
Why am I breathing like a lungfish, opening and closing my mouth, why have I lived so
long in the same body, am I sighing under my heavy dress, are my eyes open or closed,
in a night of a heavy rainfall why does the vast Andes appear in front of me again
and again?
http://bostonreview.net/poetry/NPM-2016-kim-hyesoon-don-mee-choi-driving-downpour
