American Dream

The alcove of your arm

has become my favorite room

for sleep, but I’ve been roused

by nightmares lately. Even thunderstorms

couldn’t wake you, my mother says

over the phone. I want to tell her

I’ve been seeing a white man, an American

man, but I can already imagine her:

Well, you can have friends. She had never meant

for me to become a Westerner — 

she’s afraid of losing me to a foreigner, being unable to speak

to her future grandchildren. Thousands of miles away

in Korea she asks if anything is wrong. I want to laugh.

Say to you, Isn’t she ridiculous? But

last night a Korean man broke into your room

and raped me, with you calm in your repose

next to me. He sat on my stomach with a knife,

the only gleaming thing. And you were still

in your platinum skin when I opened my eyes. How

can anything be wrong, I comfort my mother.