Night Swim
In February, a man in flippers and wetsuit swims undetected
across the East Sea, along the border of North and South Korea.
Once on land, he crawls through a drain beneath barbed wire,
walks for miles before being caught.
Video footage shows him at 4 a.m. in Goseon village,
security tower strobe light flashing out, exposing him.
He takes a few steps forward, then teeters back,
hesitates, confused, afraid and hypothermic.
How many of us have swum through
current of grief or shock
only to find ourselves disoriented, standing
on the shore of a strange country?
After loss to suicide, the landscape doesn’t
change, but everything else does.
They don’t release the man’s name,
don’t show his face. Only the back of his body
as he staggers forward in the darkness, trying
to convince himself: I am home, I am home.
ISBN: 9781939728487
full-length poetry collection, 6x9" paperback
Publication Date: March 23, 2022
Author: Joan Kwon Glass
Location: Doha, Qatar & Richmond, VA
Distribution: Distributed by Diode Editions
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