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Picture
"Vaporous World" by Alexey Adonin

Exhibition by Esther Kim

            to my father

If only museums fit into paper boxes.
I’d store each piece of you
in my bedroom, a diorama
holding half a century.

i. My fingers trace
a childhood I never knew.
Years ago, as you tucked me
and Daniel into bed, we’d ask
for stories. While other homes
unraveled the coiled narratives
of fathers, we never heard
yours. Instead, a fairytale
or a prayer. I picture the boy
hunched over a desk,
pencil in hand, and laugh.

ii. [Now, you hunch over
a wall, your naked back
to your father’s club.
]
Last night, mother ripped
a clothes hanger off the floor
and pulled her arm back—
you held her arm, and the moon
shattered across the floor.

iii. America lies
in the middle of the diorama.
Decrepit America, sugared-over
America. The underside-
of-a-dream America. Eleven-
people-puzzle-pieced-into-a-car
America. [You hold the American flag
out the car window. In the market, too.
Browned and bruised peaches. You buy
one and bite. The juices trickle off
into an innocent smile.
]

iv. Mother tells me about her
because you won’t. You’re
like your grandmother,
she says.
If only you had met her—

      two oceans
bearing the remnants
of her life—her sorrows, secrets,
hatreds, hopes—you stare
at the mug in your hand—the smell
of turmeric drifting upward— you know
turmeric prevents cancer? Yeah, it does.


Esther Kim is a Korean-American writer from Potomac, Maryland. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in SOFTBLOW, Crashtest Magazine, and Lunch Ticket, among others. In the summer of 2019, she participated in the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop. A high school junior, she has been recognized by the Library of Congress, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards as a National Gold Medalist, the Atlantic, and the Poetry Society of the UK.

Alexey Adonin is a Jerusalem based abstract-surrealist artist. His works have been showcased locally and internationally and are held in private collections around the world. Alexey uses a unique and beautiful technique in which he layers oil paints solely on top of one another to create a mystical, transparent look. His philosophy stems from the idea that one's reality is made up of what they believe it to be. Alexey uses his art as a platform to express his profound ideas about reality, humanity, and their intertwined behaviors. You can view more at www.alexeyadoninart.com.
Picture
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