Stacey Park
Poetry
Stacey Park is a Korean-Canadian writer living in southern California at the moment. She is a PhD student and assistant editor for Foothill Journal. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Curator Magazine, Levee Magazine, and elsewhere.
In There
My student says I am from in there—
names his home country—
then repeats in there, in there.
He stares at me like how could you not know all that is in there? Says in there is my home.
I say I wouldn’t say it like that. You’re not exactly “in” there right now.
But he doesn’t hear that as grammar—he hears it as heartbreak.
In the building of English, there are faults in the structures—
both mistakes and fractures.
He says in there my mother cooks.
In there I worked with my father.
In there my brother used to punch me but it was our joke.
I say I know. I know what you mean but in English we say—
in English.
Like we enter English.
Like in the country of English, there are customs to be revered.
Like in the house of English, there are fixtures that cannot be moved.
And yet the house is haunted—meaning is a ghost,
stomping on floorboards, laughing in the other room.
He says I wish I was in there and I hear a door slam,
and the echo rings out clear and correct,
as if to say there is no house without ghosts.
“ I wrote this poem while thinking about experiences I've had teaching English learners and reflecting on my own memories and experiences of encountering English as an immigrant kid who speaks two languages. ”