Two Poems by Stephen K. Kim

Purpose

My brother found it in the most stereotypical way possible,
with the Peace Corps digging wells for impoverished orphans
in a rural Tanzanian village. Remembering it, he looked wistful,
overusing phrases like “higher calling” and “the greatest good.”

My best friend Jenny quit her six-figure consulting job
After smoking ayahuasca to become a bikram yoga teacher at
a Costa Rican resort for stressed CEOs and capybaras. I told her
it was a stupid decision. She’s never looked more radiant.

I almost had it once
working summers at an ice cream shop. Every Tuesday,
the old folks from the home across town took a field trip
for scoops of pistachio and rum raisin. I greeted them all
by name, asked after grandchildren, gossiped about

their strapping new chaperone, flexed my biceps to hoots
and hollers. And I passed each of them their cones
with utmost gentleness, taking care to smile, checking
they were held firmly, before letting go.

*

Vivisection

after Nicole Sealey

You watch the hibachi chef sharpen his knife,
and the blade reminds you of when the barber
sliced your ear open. Warm slickness spread
down your neck, different from the sour warm
slickness that trickled down your inner thighs
as your sister gripped your neck while clutching
a fillet knife after you cracked a joke about
her temper. What you would sever if it meant
you could forget. A finger. No, an arm. Yes,
your left arm twisted from its socket, tendons
fraying then snapping. Like the string of the piñata
from your sister’s ninth birthday. “I was just getting
started,” she said, candy spilling like viscera from
the piñata’s bludgeoned body. Memory, you’ve read,
is like moonlight, an ocean, a sieve. But, what
memory actually is—a slender, serrated knife.

*

Stephen K. Kim (he/him) is a queer Korean American writer and educator in New Jersey. He enjoys spending time with his husband and his cat. His poems appear in Ghost City Review, Neologism, Thimble, and elsewhere. He is a Best of the Net nominee, a student and teacher at the Writers Studio, and a reader for Only Poems. He can be found online @skimperil.