Assistant Editor Michael Alessi: In tercets rife with remarkable imagery, Soleil David’s brilliant poem “The Taegukgi on a Bus Ride from Apgujeong to Gyeongnidan” condenses and unfurls the steps of a journey that bears witness to the grace we salvage. The turn in the final couplet offers both a revelatory scene of quiet devotion and the opening of an ode we might repeat to ourselves as we search for moments of hard-won hope.
To hear Soleil read the poem, click below:
The Taegukgi on a Bus Ride from Apgujeong to Gyeongnidan
Fumes rose from
the cell-phone case
I had hoped to salvage
by painting
clear nail polish
on its fragile surface.
Bubbles formed
where pattern
should have chipped off.
My bus had snagged
the Korean flag
on its side mirror,
the red and blue
of its taeguk
banged on the door, intent
on decapitating me,
the interloper dying
to be gone
on the next flight
I could afford.
Taking his time,
the driver furled the flag
at the next bus stop,
smoothing the creases,
head bowing. Oh, to love
a country so fully.
Soleil David’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Two Lines, Ulirát: The Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines (Gaudy Boy, 2021), and Cream City Review, among others. She has received support from PEN America, VONA, and the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference. She is a senior editor at The Margins.
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