Wild Rose Face

Wild Rose Face
Yong Wan Choi

To see the new day awake, I pave a road across my face
tattooed eyebrows prettily smiling
tattooed lips slightly parted
pulling the corners of the pink-foundation mouth upward
I draw and show one page of the day's diary

Ever since the beast's body kept only its down
and put on silk clothes and padded socks,
as if acting a play on a stage under blazing sunlight
the bare face I was born with went far away
a clown whose very gestures of the heart wear a mask

An armful of flowers dyed on pointed fingernails,
returning by the long road where the bare moon-face eclipses the sun,
lays down all its thorns beneath the root
where in a lifetime shall I find my own face

Once the wild rose has bloomed and faded
its withered petals cannot turn over on their own
yet the tattoo on the face will still hold firm

The bare face, soaked and moist in the mirror sea,
becoming an ebb tide that seeks a stream of flood tide,
shall it surge up once and dance a dance of waves