"Blue Moon" by Hailey Stumpo
Gukhui Noh | Basin
Washing my hair in a basin
Drifting in the curves
Hair unravels in water
The inverted world is real
My head no longer belongs to me
Ten fingers move like fish
My grandma, known to me only
in photographs
reaches out her papery hand
Monochrome faces ripple on the water
The silver hairpin shines still
Reincarnated every spring
Trees stand in colossal fossils
Light green scales cover
every twig from the bare spine
One droplet through my hair
flows unbroken
The rain falling on shoulders
is unknown to the one
on my forehead
Drifting in the curves
Hair unravels in water
The inverted world is real
My head no longer belongs to me
Ten fingers move like fish
My grandma, known to me only
in photographs
reaches out her papery hand
Monochrome faces ripple on the water
The silver hairpin shines still
Reincarnated every spring
Trees stand in colossal fossils
Light green scales cover
every twig from the bare spine
One droplet through my hair
flows unbroken
The rain falling on shoulders
is unknown to the one
on my forehead
Gukhui Noh is a Korean poet and author of her hand-bound chapbook, moonbow(Soyuz, 2022). She won the 2016 Hankook Ilbo New Year’s Literary Award for Poetry. Her work has received support from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, the Center for Cultural Innovation, and Seoul Arts Foundation.
Hailey Stumpo is a Dover-based fine artist currently pursuing a degree in studio art at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Her works have been acquired by private collectors in Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, including renowned oil painter Dr. Sandra Corpora, by whom Stumpo has been mentored for three years. You can find Hailey on Instagram @indieannaartwork and on her website.
