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Two Poems

Two Poems Braving sleet as we make our way, Musing, with a smile, how nice it’d be To have occasional breaks outdoors During working hours, We walk inside the district office. Peeling the back off a photo Of a shabby-looking man of twenty-nine, A man already entombed six years In Karibong-dong Industrial Estate, Time streaming by night and day, Flown away in labor, Pointless and death-like life, Reminded now that I myself positions 1:3 Winter 1993 Am a citizen, too, I proceed to renew my identity card. Raising my coarse hand, dark and proud hand That never committed a crime, The hand that fed my family, Producing goods for export, My fingerprints are taken. Ah, but no print is visible. None. Destroyed by manual work, T h e fingerprints, supposedly unique in each case, Fail to register. Nothing. Mr. Chong, Mr. Yi, and Mr. Mun, Theirs as well are gone, all gone. Policeman in charge got upset. Yet, under the long years of labor Our fingerprints, our youth, our life itself Must have dissolved, Absorbed by export goods Shipped to the other shores of the ocean. Following repeated attempts, No fingerprints to the last trial, Some girls from a chemical http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png positions asia critique Duke University Press

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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 1993 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1067-9847
eISSN
1527-8271
DOI
10.1215/10679847-1-3-581
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Braving sleet as we make our way, Musing, with a smile, how nice it’d be To have occasional breaks outdoors During working hours, We walk inside the district office. Peeling the back off a photo Of a shabby-looking man of twenty-nine, A man already entombed six years In Karibong-dong Industrial Estate, Time streaming by night and day, Flown away in labor, Pointless and death-like life, Reminded now that I myself positions 1:3 Winter 1993 Am a citizen, too, I proceed to renew my identity card. Raising my coarse hand, dark and proud hand That never committed a crime, The hand that fed my family, Producing goods for export, My fingerprints are taken. Ah, but no print is visible. None. Destroyed by manual work, T h e fingerprints, supposedly unique in each case, Fail to register. Nothing. Mr. Chong, Mr. Yi, and Mr. Mun, Theirs as well are gone, all gone. Policeman in charge got upset. Yet, under the long years of labor Our fingerprints, our youth, our life itself Must have dissolved, Absorbed by export goods Shipped to the other shores of the ocean. Following repeated attempts, No fingerprints to the last trial, Some girls from a chemical

Journal

positions asia critiqueDuke University Press

Published: Dec 1, 1993

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