I say
that the missing
watermelon half
is human.
The skeins
of pinkish rinds
coiling down
from the rope
suggest flesh
in summer —
the kind in which the air
looks like it’s boiling
above the asphalt.
And the cleaver
lying in wait:
why place it there at all,
if not to propose
destruction —
so as
to give structure
to the bone-yellow
blankness
of infinity,
the longing without end?
Scene With Watermelon From Hokusai
from The Corrected Version by Rosanna Young Oh
At its heart, Rosanna Young Oh’s debut collection of poems, The Corrected Version, is an immigrant narrative that ponders what it means to be an American. Who or what do we leave behind when we move to a new country? Who or what do we take with us? Traveling through Korean folklore, paintings, Long Island, a family grocery store, and Buddhism, the book meditates on the process of making meaning out of the lives we create for ourselves—a task that has the speaker relentlessly questioning, investigating, erasing, and rewriting the stories she ultimately chooses to inherit as her own. A book about survival, it is also a journey made gentle by moments of love and compassion.
