I died in my room and they turned it
Into a tomb, built to look like where I
Slept since little. Time is now, so thunder
With me: get loud and prepare to receive
These electric vibrations, earthen dome,
Stony carved-out cave, not-a-final resting place.
My smoke machine is at a friend’s party;
I’d love to come out and be messianic
Like a twig on the Galilee Sea, performing
Water walking, more god-like seemingly
Than the Resurrection, which none saw.
I do care about lepers
Deserving paradise on their island.
How do you beg your soul to ask yourself
To not kill you—Did I ask to be raised?
I don’t even know what my relationship
To the guy was; he didn’t stay. Somewhere between
Verse and chapter, mother nursed me back.

—

Jack Jung is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was a Truman Capote Fellow. He was born in Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to the United States. He received his BA in English from Harvard, and an MA in Korean Language and Literature from Seoul National University. His translations of Korean poet Yi Sang’s poetry and prose are published in Yi Sang: Selected Works by Wave Books. He is the American Literary Translation Association’s 2021 Emerging Translator Mentorship Program Mentor for Korean poetry. He currently teaches Korean poetry translation at Literature Translation Institute of Korea.