'Lean on the Water,'
A Poem by Kim Hyesoon

Lean on the Water
Day Four

Lean your body on the water and cling to it

Can’t bear it any longer. I twist my body
holding onto the fingers of water and  

wear a coat woven with water’s hair
I crouch and cover my face

Let’s be slant together
Let’s fall embracing each other

After I jump off
it’ll be your turn to jump

When I throw down the fishing line
please bite on the hook and bob up
I’ll do the same next time

Plead to

the water that talks to itself more than you do
It babbles on when it’s drunk 

so I take the rain home
Water pours in through the window

You’re about to lean
on it
but the water
leans on you even more

–Translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi

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By Kim Hyesoon, translated by Don Mee Choi, from Autobiography of Death, copyright © 2016 by Kim Hyesoon, translation copyright © 2018 by Don Mee Choi. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.