By Anthony Imm
my mother’s korean tongue
is full poison, mouth of snares
syllables cut-throat like tiger teeth
consonants splitting waterfalls into two
yet sweet as a nectarine
loving as a kiss
nostalgic like the seas
my mother’s korean was like that
when she came to america,
she hid the secret fruits of koreana in her pockets
plucked them from a tree in jeonju, relished
a slice in her mouth
when she needed to speak,
through security and customs
she relied on her fractured english
mismatched vowels
sentences whirring in her mind
words becoming cogs lodged in her throat
my mother’s english was like that
she told me of tales
of deities soaring on clouds
of a bear eating garlic to become human
of nine-tailed spirits haunting the boulevard
she kintsugied her shattered bowl of english
with the golden lustre of korean
gluing each vowel sharded in her tongue
back together
she’d tell me:
“of the rabbit who lived on the dal”
“of our greatest king of joseon”
she’d deconstruct the construction of
subject-verb-noun, of
english-english-english
with her composition language of two heritages
telling me “bring your jeobsi to the sink after you eat”
telling me “na-eh love is for you”
because my mother wanted to assimilate
to cut off her korean tongue, substitute it
for red, white, and blue
to speak in only americana
tell me fables of peter and hansel
to move past her old fruits of koreana
now rotting inside of her stomach
i could tell she wanted that for me too
but she could never remove her native speech
she could never melt the rind of her korean
into her temple, refurbish her tongue with
the television language, the school childrens’ language
the teachers’ languages, this land’s unofficial official language
so my mother’s english is like that
a bouquet of flowers, a set of flavors,
a book of chapters, a language of two
choppy yet distilled
disconnected yet tough
like her
my mother’s korean is like that.
Anthony Imm is a rising senior at Northern Valley Demarest High School. He’s been writing since he was seven and has been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Currently, he is attending the 92NY Young Writers Workshop in New York City, New York. In his spare time, he likes to watch hour-long documentaries about anything and eat vanilla ice cream.
Hot Pot Magazine 