A LETTER TO THE EXILED-SELF

I can’t recall
precisely why and when 
I abandoned her who insisted on painting  
a white moon and the indigo ocean. 

Perhaps
I left her back
in the blue hills of Tennessee
with the fiddle player, who adored her painting:
a full moon over the blue mountains 
in an empty indigo ocean.

At the sound of bass fiddle 
her heart enchanted;
under a such moon
he always played his fiddle.

Once,
I saw her again
in a dream:
in the moon-lit night
draped
in an indigo robe
the black hair flowing—
a birdlike silhouette
in the air.

she was flying
toward
the indigo space
where
the Sky
becomes
the Ocean.

Sekyo Nam Haines is a poet, translator from Cambridge, MA. Her translation, Bitter Seasons’ Whip: The complete Poems of Lee Yuk Sa, was published in 2022 (Tolsun Books). Her poems appeared in the Constellations, Off the Coast, and Lily Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her translations of Kim Sowohl’s poetry appeared in The Harvard Review, The Brooklyn Rail: In Translation, Ezra, and Circumference. Her translations of Cho Ji Hoon appeared in many literary journals including Asymptote’s translation Tuesday blog, The Tampa Review, Guernica Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Common, Rhino, LIT Magazine, Los Angeles Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Golf Coast Journal.