Landlock X: Poems

The Half-Sister, Unmet

Paint the edges of an imagined life in a foreign tongue,
in a land rich in exotics: silk hanboks, piled-high beaded

pearl hair pieces, tea ceremonies, swallowing odd animal eggs.
Exotic because it's over there, inappropriate, of course,

for fetishizing the other. (I am performing). Let's say
how inadequate: my fecundity swells up sudden, a heavy

perfume at the apex before the slope to decay. Our heads
nestled on one pillow, we might have whispered to each other

tiny confessions of who we lusted after, even loved. Sisters. Secret
keepers. Probably, we would have hated each other.