Hands

I put on the gloves.

My hands shrunk absurdly.
When I put them on my knees
they look so strange.

      *

What I actually envied
was not you
but your soft fingers.

With your fingers
to hold my hand
to touch my face
and to touch your face as well.

I wonder why love can’t be done in three’s.
Why in this world
there are only you and me.

      *

I pulled off the gloves and placed my hand on the window.

If I carefully peel it off
my palm lines will stick to the glass.
They might grow recklessly.

But because fate must be obeyed
let’s tape the window so it will not break
and never take off our gloves again.

      *

Inside the gloves, two hands.

One is mine
I hope the other is yours.

By Shin Hae-Wook
translated, from the Korean, by Chloe Park

 
Chloe Park was born in Seoul, Korea in 1991 and moved to the U.S. in 1999. She is currently a senior undergraduate at University of California, Berkeley, and is working on her English major. Shin Hae-Wook (1974-) was born in Chuncheon, Gwangwon-do, and earned her Masters in Korean Literature at Hanrim University. She has published two collections of poetry, Biological and Concise Arrangement, and a collection of essays, Heat of the Unadult.