Jed Munson


Love Letter
 

There is no letter.

 
for 규, no
 

one G would communicate the bend
of 기억, the name

 
of the letter, which bends
between us, means memory

 
serves. the greater
river by feeding the lesser, the

 
many. K would not communicate
your aversion to K’s

 
harshness. To harshness.

 
Q would sound like 규, maybe, but,
unmuted, despite its roundness, staked.

 
in the ground. A tree
by the river at the river’s
branching,

its groundedness, even
tuning fork struck

 
this note through bedrock
rings of

 

 

alone would not convey the other
half, the balancing
act of branches

 
that is 원 holding the silence

in

of 이응. In winter a tree

 
still holds its vacance. You
contract s at the edge
of One and grow s outward as
do river s into their s

 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 

The Guard
 

Wood jaw under of

the key
Change s. Keyed
to. The

which-tree
Of the melody ironing
Out—that which is

 
Melodized, unrumpling the

note. C

-arries the paper through a crowd. No
Wind but it rustles the half-past

 
Hour round as
Gone’
s yoke is

 
Greening-in, unfastening—that which
is ours is an

H our cut short. An a.m.
of ours. An amour like a flag. At

Half-mast, us evens,
breaks the remote

 
future I crave
the news—Van, the H
R guy,
Relays
the news of delay. Delays the news

of relay.

Of course it snowed as a matter of

Course, it rained

Fact. Also.

You cannot hear me; you are too tired to

speaking of cars, the cars are

that us streets hiss

 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 

All and Only

Rain without resumable cause. Concentrating fingers fumble. At Mothernode. Syntax problem builds.

Actual attention spreading mode. Heads only requirement. Trees analytic tools for studying air. One of us trains towards others.

All took exemptions. They live in heads rent-free. Woods guy neverminded into that guy. Wash tall quickly wraparound scrub.

Of course: not-perfect mirror. Pin doubles under scrutiny. Not needled by riddles. Rain taken down from the beginning.

Of path through chart. Moving with rain or because. Of deep structure passing into surface. Nodes flash back.

We live in the middle of nowhere. And I can give you rides whenever, wherever you need.

Trees assume grammatical branches. Grammar assumes roots that end. What is optional is eating noodles. With a fork in noodles.

I unbox. But stiff and scrambled. Tree is optional. Green’s descent.

Draw every possible tree as one. Tree. It is so. Non-one.

It somehow barely resembles anything. The last thing to figure out is the words. Leaping out of the last thing’s order. Of anything left.

 
 
 
 
**
 
 
 
 

어디든, 언제나 [wherever, whenever]
 

Was it looking at the speed at which rain through trees

makes sense and it isn’t rain’s speed through trees

or the speed of looking at rain through trees

 

looking for the light pull’s pleasing

weight in my palms counter it

wasn’t light’s

 

pull or push or light, or weight of one’s breathing-concentrate

on palm’s sweating—or sway, I was sweat and swayed with

the light consume me and I blemish that way ants tickle

 

peach ooze down the table’s dwindled

Leg. Loneliness on the clean floor. Radiator’s

outside-my-air voice when I turn to be reminded of the bay in every window, not the machine of me whirring

 

simple stuck wipe up the table leg, song against grains I can’t see

on my knees, desert-vacuumed palm. I half-remember looking up

to feel you there, my admiring your ankles and your knees—how beautifully you are connected

 

to yourself—unclasping the phrase from my some such mouthing. Was it when we crossed

불광천 on those wide-flat stones the current pushed into place you asked me did I like the rain—no,

not rain, but days of it—비 오는 날들—living at the speed

 

they force—yes—we were in one and it appeared to only be stretching on my glasses on the outside

of my breath, it comes taking down the day’s 미세먼지 and the last week of blossoms and the light

I slowed to wipe the streaks you slowed


 
 
**
JED MUNSON is the author of several poetry chapbooks, including Minesweeper, winner of the 2022 New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM chapbook prize. A book of his essays, Commentary on the Birds, is forthcoming with Rescue Press. His writing can be found in Conjunctions, Bat City Review, Vestiges, Annulet, P-QUEUE, and other journals.