Mommy's Expansion

Translated By Don Mee Choi
She’s a white rabbit buried in snow

White sheets white pillows nice nightie my mommy
White rabbit lying still under the snow with its paws crossed

Her ears that don’t listen to anything have grown up
When I go near them, they become filthy clouds

Like falling snowflakes
like fog on the river
Mommy’s a bunny that can’t be held

Human vegetable—is this term meant to insult or praise plants?
Mommy walks the hospital hallway filled with the souls of human vegetables

Long, long ago there lived a genius girl
She grew old and turned into a white bunny in her bed

What’s your name? I forgot, she can barely speak
She became disabled and snow-white, growing wider and wider

What will we become after we grow up fierce?
We pull out the whitest-white bunny from under the blanket and shake it

Notes:

Read the Korean-language version, "엄마의 팽창."

Copyright Credit: Kim Hyesoon, "Mommy's Expansion" (Tr. by Don Mee Choi) from Phantom Pain Wings. Copyright © 2023 by Kim Hyesoon.  Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: Phantom Pain Wings (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2023)