The Second Generation Revisits the Question of the Good Life

by Meg Kim

---

The city cloaks herself in haze, her pores closing. 

Her organs work overtime to filter the toxins of industry. Burnout 
is silent, the infinitesimal settling of the birds after the train has passed.  

Pears the size of a fist―these ones are Korean, these are Chinese, 
and this one, Mongolian―afford me a taste of autumn,
with the wide grin
of the woman identifying the tones and freckles of fruit skin. 

I forget which is which, so I bite into all of them. 

This variety of discontent, never ripe. 

This, a kind of freedom. 

Another kind: how there is only 
one way to peel a fruit, blade angled inward, toward 

the flesh. Some actions lack 

the luxury of sprawl.

So unspools my future, 

without drawing blood. 

---

Meg Kim is a poet from Southern Oregon currently based in Chicago. Her debut chapbook, INVISIBLE CARTOGRAPHIES, is forthcoming with New Delta Review, and her work has appeared in Sycamore Review, Ninth Letter, and The Adroit Journal, among others.