This selection, chosen by guest editor Sarah Clark, is from ASTERISM by Ae Hee Lee (Tupelo Press 2024).
(Dis)Ambiguation
All moons in all waters are that one moon
—Cho Oh-hyun
Before immigrant, noun
unproper, body of water
lusting after stars, prone
to flood, before china! and me
turning to look as if I was
referent, or even ají, Peruvian
pepper, affectionate nickname, ajicita—
and unnie, unnie, older sister, before
questioning a name, its relation
to skin, story, what’s outside
but everything else,
before alien, untouchable
planet humming to be heard,
my parents spread open a hanja
dictionary on the hospital bed,
their fingertips lifted
a name from the paper:
사랑 :: 愛 :: heart cradled, carried slowly as cloud,
빛날 :: 熙 :: flower with a shining throat for lantern.
Born in South Korea and raised in Peru, Ae Hee Lee is the author of ASTERISM, selected by John Murillo for the 2022 Dorset Prize, and the poetry chapbooks Bedtime || Riverbed, Dear bear, and Connotary, the last of which was selected as the winner for the 2021 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Her work can be found at The Georgia Review, Poetry Northwest, New England Review, and Southern Review, among others.
Sarah Clark is a mad crip genderfuck two-spirit enrolled Nanticoke editor, writer, and cultural consultant. They are Editor-in-Chief of beestung, Editor-in-Chief and Poetry Editor at ANMLY, Editor-in-Chief at ALOCASIA: a journal of queer plant-based writing, Co-Editor of the Bettering American Poetry series, and a current Board member and Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications. They have edited folios for publications including the GLITTERBRAIN folio and a folio on Indigenous & Decolonial Futures & Futurisms at ANMLY. Sarah freelances, and has worked with a number of literary and arts publications and organizations, including the Best of the Net anthology, contemptorary, Curious Specimens, #PoetsResist at Glass Poetry, Apogee Journal, Blackbird, the Paris Review, and elsewhere.
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