Emily Jungmin Yoon

Love and Death Speaking at Once

We come together. To love someone means to imagine
their death. 2 a.m. and you lie awake in fear of us. What if?

What if? Call your mother. Say you’re sorry. Call your
father. What? Call your sister. Memory sustains

and fades. Take a picture. Keep a journal. Underline,
doggy-ear, leave margin-notes in your book, mark it

with your touch. Do not go into a mountain alone.
Write the letter that embarrasses you, adulating,

undulating language, each line a petal in a dahlia.
Fields of swaying dahlias, you make them.

Yes, you can. Give that person a bouquet of dahlias,
grown, then cut for you; that is us, together. We are beautiful

together. If we make in you such tender-hearted anticipation—
is it so bad?

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