ogeum

those who steal/
needles/
eventually steal/
oxen/

i think often about the two thieves. when i do, from somewhere behind
me (and when i say behind i mean it in every sense of the word, as in all
the things that are stretched thin and long behind my back, all of which
i have a name for, although not all of those names are in english.) a
ghostly willow cane arcs downward. i hear my father’s voice in the wells
of my mind. his korean plays at the same time as my translation of. a
bad doubling. the

inside of my left knee
spot right in the middle of my left leg
part that hurts most to get tattooed
valley of the shadow of death
unnamable bits of my body

clench and grow numb. only the left one.

there is no term in english for the inside of your knee.

a sokdam is kind of like a proverb, with the only difference being that it is
nothing like a proverb at all. proverb stems from pro, as in “forth” and verbum,
as in “word.” words put forward. sokdam also stems from two words: sok and
dam.

three years ago, i spoke enough korean to believe that sokdam meant “inside
wall” (i did not know that sok had other meanings beside inside, and dam could
mean more than wall) i know better now, know that it roughly translates to
words uttered in tradition but i am sick of roughly translating, it seems all i ever
fucking do is roughly translate and

how marginally easier all of this would be, if only you

spoke both korean and english
spoke the same amount of korean and english as i did
had the same spiderweb of collagen holding together old scars
mistranslated as i did
were me
also were an exhausted diplomat, running to and fro between two
camps and knowing that both sides have already set war in motion.

(language as less of a handshake and more of that same hand, slick with
coppery sweat and fiddling with the dial to see when the shells begin to
drop and you keep fucking up, you fuck up again and again, you can’t
find the right frequency, you cannot, and your children stare at you
terrified while an ad jingle for baking soda ekes from the speaker.)

i think often about the two thieves, a different pair this time. a different
doubling. i contemplate clambering over the wall because i am a thief.
only ever the one on the left. a different doubling still. (all bad.)

capitalize nothing because there is no capitalization in korean and
certainly not here; nothing special to being first. (did you know that all
korean letters are the same height? we stay within the walls here, inside
or otherwise.) i think about calling it procrustean, about showing off all
the words i know, but there is a p and that insatiable half millimeter is
unspeakable. today, i will not mind my ps and qs, i will turn a willow
cane to all the ps and qs of the world, the ys and js as well, until all their
legs, too, curl inward and they clutch at that unutterable part of their
bodies. only the left one.

in korean, when you tell someone hey that one nameless part of my legs
is numb, it means that you are wracked with guilt.

when my father used to say the untranslated version of

those who steal/
needles/
eventually steal/
oxen/

i wanted to tell him that i stole nothing. that all i did was skip out on
church or ate too many braised quail eggs. i did not know that he meant
sinning began with very little things. i too was very little.

years later, i sit and wonder which of the two thieves i am, and then
wonder which of the two thieves i am, different ones this time. for years,
i think about how i would translate my father’s sokdam. cow would
have sufficed. oxen felt better. something sacrificial to the word ox.

when he put the cane away for the final time, i somehow knew that this
was the last time. i wondered whether it was because i quit stealing, or
because i’ve finally managed to steal an ox and there was nothing else
left to take. from just below my left thigh, an ache as gentle as a thief’s
hand on the lock.