Translated by Chae-Pyong Song and Anne Rashid

Photography by Lee Sang-youp

Chronicle by Kim Kyung-ju

At flower tea time I color my teeth
with the water of old tea
It rains when I, fingers wet with saliva,
pick up the golden yellow feet
of insects from a book
It rains like the evening I ran after
my lost tooth in the stream as a child
The rain falls in the in-between and
I listen to the inside of the rock
I place in this “between”
the isolated language
in which rain falls
When I feel sorrowful from watching my childlike face,
I listen to the inscription of the tooth that slowly floats in water

(Originally published in Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture, Volume 5 [2012])

Kim Kyung-Ju was born in Gwangju in 1976. He studied philosophy at Sogang University. His poetry collections include I am a Season that Doesn’t Exist in This World, The Strange Story, and Calming the Parallactic Eyes. He was awarded the Today’s Young Artist Award and the Kim Su-young Literature Award.