103 Korean Martyrs

By Monica Youn Monica Youn

Where was it that we went that night?

That long, low building: floodlights

rimmed in lavender, the moon ringed

in rose. I would rather, then, have stayed

outside, where spiderwebs glowed

like jellyfish in the damp yew hedges,

where the paths were chalky pebbles

set with giant stepping stones.

But the film was starting. In the air-

conditioned dark, a crowd of strangers,

strange families (not from our church)

in rows of metal folding chairs to see

a man quartered by horses: strain

stitched across his shining back

then, all over at once, an unraveling

and then the spill of meat;

a girl pushed through a doorway,

naked among soldiers:

she grew a dress to cover herself,

a blue dress with a blinding sash.

Monica Youn, “103 Korean Martyrs” from Barter. Copyright © 2003 by Monica Youn. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press, www.graywolfpress.org

Source: Barter (Graywolf Press, 2003)

Biography

Monica Youn’s poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Tin House and in Cue: A Journal of Prose Poetry. Her awards include the Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell. Her books of poetry include Barter (2003) and Ignatz (2010), a series of poems loosely based on the mouse character from George Herriman’s Krazy Kat comic strip of the 1920s-30s, was a finalist . . .

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