Car Accident (事故)

Car (車) Accident (事故)
Yong Wan Choi 02.06.10

Along the wide road loud with the farting of cars
broad-leaved street trees laugh, breathing in the smell
people scowl under every kind of stress

In Koreatown, where laughter and tears are bought and sold,
I step aside for a fire truck shouting, veins bulging
a flustered ambulance hurries its wheels too
at the crossing where cars halt as if startled
a blood-red car has pounced on a black one pinned beneath
and lies sprawled, two bleeding legs thrust in the air
a bicycle lies beside them, only its wheels still turning

Suddenly in my ears, gunfire bruised for half a century
shells bursting, crawling home as if pressed flat to the ground
the wounds of pitiful brothers and sisters in the northern homeland
clear away the supper table, clear away even the table at Panmunjom
the names we cry out from Jirisan
will they echo back from Baekdusan