A Korean Birth Mother’s Name

as I know

 

all mothers must, this pain

becomes an even-handed story

 

told over gin, yolk,

 

and crushed rose,

wild abandonment—Sara, may I call you that?

 

you weren’t mindless.

 

We’re both

those

 

wild

 

flowers in Yeonggwang—it’s the part of the country

 

our people can’t find

because

 

cherry blossoms

are everywhere.

 

But I grow easily.

 
 
 
 

 

Bo Schwabacher's poems have appeared in CutBank, diode, Muzzle, Redivider, Red Paint Hill Poetry Journal, Rust+Moth, Vinyl, and elsewhere. Her first book of poems, A Korean Bathhouse in Dream City, is being released by YesYes Books. She teaches at Northern Arizona University.