[Afternoon Poem] box 1 / Jeong Yeonhong

It comes

Apple box Potato box Lettuce box Ramen box

My job is to unload and stack for 8 hours a day

Square box

Why is there no round box?

I move 51 boxes and fall into thought

Boxes cold and sharp like ice floes

Boxes without mouths

Boxes with cliffs on all sides

Boxes that must be lifted by hand

Strengthening my waist

Heave-ho

Placing on the display shelf and again

Placing

When muscles lift the box

Joints receive the box and set it down

Boxes that need no humanity

Boxes unloaded from the truck

Boxes piled up in front of me every day

The boxes now were probably placed by a box worker like me

He is probably smoking a cigarette about now

Angular boxes

No flexibility of curves

Square boxes run on the streets

I drag my tired body and under the square

box, I cover myself with a blanket and sleep

When I wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, my face keeps

resembling a square

■ When the running box stops, the box gets off the box, opens the box, and unloads the boxes. Yellow boxes, white boxes, arrogant boxes, prim boxes, angry boxes, somewhat deflated boxes... The boxes stack boxes on top of boxes, then more boxes on top of those, continuously piling up. They pile up as tall as apartments, as tall as buildings. Just enough not to collapse. When the box places one box at each front door and rings the doorbell, people exclaim and hug the boxes, quickly disappearing inside the boxes. Without a word or greeting, they treat the boxes truly like boxes. Whether or not, the boxes do not care. Because they are busy, until they get crushed and discarded, boxes unload, stack, distribute, and keep running. Sometimes boxes remember they were once people, but that seems like a past life, leaving them bewildered. Poet Chaesangwoo