chronicle of the LA Riots from an ex-Koreatown boy who never lived through it
They started calling it saigu after they shot
one of their own boys.
They said all they did
was punch a couple holes
into the blackened sky
for light.
Apparently he fell
from the supermarket’s roof.
Nobody approached
the body.
II.
Living in Beverly Hills
and working an office job that lets off
at five.
Plenty time for walks in the park
and radio. American
dream.
Maybe a house or two,
a pension
to grow old on.
This both their fault
and true.
I never imagined I would need
to relearn the earth.
They
probably thought so too.
The body has an allergic reaction
to new soil.
III.
Question:
is it possible to be gentrified by
your own people?
They don’t smell of sweat.
There are condos on Wilshire.
They are ugly.
But we
are proud. We’d rather sit
and let our lungs mold.
We shuttle voters
to stop a homeless shelter.
Too close to the school,
my mom says.
IV.
The National Guard
had stopped at the gates of Beverly Hills.
Koreans
had armed themselves to defend
and make this land ours.
I don’t know what she’s talking about.
We came here in 2008.
Mom religiously opposes the Little Bangladesh-Koreatown
redistricting plan, so much so that she is willing to vote.
I find images on the internet.
The Gaju Market where we walked
the stroller sagging.
The bags heavy,
my little brother heavier because we
had one car
and its vents
spat a desert in our faces.
I wouldn’t trust my dad with a gun.
V.
Every second of it. I have never seen
this country tangled
in so much telephone wire and candlelight.
Making them dance
over the cracks of the sidewalk.
The goldfinches have fled.
How we hammer a birdbox into ink,
awaiting their return.
Our house pays—
we have made gods
of holes in the sky.
Marooned, erased, no—blurred
into inkblot on the midnight asphalt.
Maybe this time the open door will sing
a siren. Survival worth gold after
the fingernails are clawed blunt. Go ahead.
While the rearview mirror stretches
another reverb taut, tell me again how you plan
to auction another lifetime. Sorry
is the tool of our trade. Because how
does one stop hunger? How,
when the empty pantry stares
right back, reminds that bread is a promise,
a promise of a body to feed today, tomorrow,
and again. You try being the watchman. Sing
your throat hollow and see if you can stop
from drinking yourself away. Maybe then
you too will be another old dog lying
in the middle of the road, waiting.
Dohyun Kim
Dohyun Kim (he/him) is a writer from Los Angeles and a student at Stanford University. A 2022 National YoungArts Finalist in Poetry, his work appears in DIALOGIST and Peach Mag, among others.