Dear Margaret Cho [korea might be gay but I do not think you are.]
korea might be gay but I do not think you are.
korea is a peninsula. you and I are people meaning that
we have hair we comb and things to look at. our lips
pout and take on the fullness of an adopted meaning.
the fact of the matter is that relentlessness is a hand-
shake, a limp fish or glass of lukewarm tea. the fact of
the matter is that standing on a stage everything is
comic, meaning small and memorable, of the insubstan-
tial "universe," a minor disaster or floating chord.
the darkness is outside when I see you, not in.
I laugh when the funny thing gets said, and mostly I
laugh inside. on the inside is without curves and artifi-
cial spaces, many of them not gay or korea. but when I
see you they all run and speech is maybe stammer,
sometimes slur.
margaret cho, your tongue might wreak more havoc
than in speaks, outside being from the vantage point of
escalating stairs, from dark glasses and escapades. the
vantage being from a great height, a lighter space on
the inside that was formerly before the dark and laugh.
we really wait for the funny things before they are said
and let go for ever after.
margaret, there are many funny sisters and there are
many porn stores. I too think woo lae ok is really petri-
fied of its own fish. that there are babies and there are
dykes, that this little piggy has something, that a pubic
mound transforms into a public space, not being gay or
with outstanding curves, prayerful and abashed, facing
the tide, grown over, rediscovered in the woods by
strangers and haunted for years and years.
Copyright Credit: Sueyeun Juliette Lee, "Dear Margaret Cho [korea might be gay but I do not think you are.]" from That Gorgeous Feeling. Copyright © 2008 by Sueyeun Juliette Lee. Reprinted by permission of Sueyeun Juliette Lee.