Mother to myself

by Tanya Ko Hong

I am busy taking care of 

my children in the morning

and dropping them off at school

Standing in the messy kitchen

I miss my mother who prepared food for me

over the briquettes

well-cooked sticky white rice 

with white fish on top

and a nice warm bone soup

Instead I dip leftover French toast

in cold maple syrup

while cleaning up the kitchen

I stop dead and ask

What am I doing—

I grab a handful of new rice 

thaw the mackerel 

I saved for my husband

and warm the chicken noodle soup

I saved for my children

In my kitchen

I usually become my mother

who wasted nothing and ate our scraps

But now I am cooking for me

broiling fish

Ah, smell of cooking rice

After warming the noodles

I turn off the gas stove

* * * * *

Tanya Ko Hong (Hyonhye) is a poet, translator, and cultural curator who champions bilingual poetry and poets. Born and raised in Suk Su Dong, South Korea, she immigrated to the U.S. at the age of eighteen. She is the author of five books: The War Still Within (KYSO Flash Press, 2019); Mother to Myself, a collection of poems in Korean (Prunsasang Press, 2015); Yellow Flowers on a Rainy Day (Oma Books of the Pacific, 2003); Mother’s Diary of Generation 1.5 (Qumran, 2002); and Generation 1.5 (Korea: Esprit Books, 1993).

Her poetry appears in Rattle, Beloit Poetry Journal, Entropy, Cultural Weekly, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly (published by The Feminist Press), Lunch Ticket,  great weather for MEDIA, Califragile, The Chosun Ilbo, The Korea Times, Korea Central Daily News, and the Aeolian Harp Series Anthology, among others.

Author’s website: http://www.tanyakohong.com