H is for Hideous

He raised a flower vase to be his wife

The vase was so quiet that he didn’t dare ask her anything

He told her, Stay home

When I come home, raise the corners of your lips

He enjoyed hiding his body inside the mute vase

The vase stank

The meterman who entered the house said, I had a strange feeling

I felt as if thousands of eyes were secretly watching me

That feeling of being in an empty kitchen when a faucet suddenly turns on by itself and water gushes out

The vase never did a thing in the house

It only held a rotten flower in its mouth

It only rattled the windows, cabinets, and glasses all night long

Sometimes it jumped up on the table and bashed its own head into bits

It could only lay its body in a straight line at the same hour, same space, and fly fast

It could only float up from bed with its hair down for a few minutes

But when you stared into the husband’s eyes for a long time

you saw a crazy, homeless, mute woman wiggling out

He had a reputation for avoiding eye contact, being shy

After he died, the first thing the vase did was wash her hair in the middle of the night

After he died, the second thing the vase did was stare at herself in the mirror for a long time

After he died, the vase screamed every morning as if her face were stabbed by a pick

At dawn she went up to the roof and beat on the washbowl as if sending a fire signal

The police officer who received a call about the noise asked,

How many years have you lived here?

I don’t live here

I’m just housesitting

I change the water in the vase

I get mail

I clean the shadows

I give birth to babies,

the vase spoke for the first time

Notes:

Read the Korean-language version, "흉할흉."

Source: Phantom Pain Wings (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2023)