When her mother died,
\nmy mother burned a letter without a sound
\nor complaint. In the kitchen, she made tea
\nand watched my father write it in Korean,
\nas was the custom. <\/p>\n
It was the first poem my father had written for her\u2014
\nhis muscular hand and the willow pen
\nmoved together on rice paper.
\nOn the porch,
\nhe lit the match
\nand she held the letter still
\nuntil the ashes broke.<\/p>\n
To the boy with a basketball across the street,
\nthe fire must have looked like an act of violence
\nor protest. It is not that simple,
\nI wanted to tell the child,
\nit is self-sacrifice,
\nsomething more outrageous. <\/p>\n
The wind rattled the dried eucalyptus on the windowsill,
\ncarrying the words, the rain-ghosts that linger
\nin the summer cold.<\/p>\n
We were both filled with wishes,
\nmy mother and I\u2014
\nshe let hers burn
\nand I went to read mine in a book of poems.<\/p>\n
When her mother died, my mother burned a letter without a sound or complaint. In the kitchen, she made tea and watched my father write it in Korean, as was the custom. It was the first poem my father had written for her\u2014 his muscular hand and the willow pen moved together on rice paper. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-1vG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5808"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10243,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5808\/revisions\/10243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}