he asks in French-accented Korean
I reply, unsure if I’ve answered his question
Where are you going?
I’m going home
I’m going to Haebangchon to my third-story,
five hundred–square-foot apartment
it’s where I sleep, receive my mail, store three, overweight pieces of luggage
how can I feel at home when I am harassed by every dick-toting non-Korean I pass on the street?
if it isn’t me they’re harassing it’s another Korean
the difference?
these assholes
understand my back-lashing tongue
defend in angry, fluent English
I tell them to go back to where they came from
this is not my home
this neighborhood which is likened to a ghetto
or the projects
no. these words are too kind
slum? no
cesspool?
yes, I live in a cesspool
I’m going to America
Minnesota
this is where I grew up
hold citizenship
registered to vote
own property
received my passport
the Land of ten thousand Adopted Koreans!
I should feel at home
a multitude of Asian faces
yet our paths rarely crossed
my childhood home
surrounded on three sides
by farm fields
it is here I’m told
to go back to where I came from
explains my urge
to run away from home
I want to run
to something that feels like home
America is not my home
Living in Korea
I did not feel like I belong in America more
nor like I belong in Korea more
it only made me feel
that I belong everywhere
less
as I begin to explain this
he barely lets me finish
by stating he too
feels the same
he understands
I don’t need to explain
Where is home for you?
how could Korea be my homeland
when I couldn’t even find it on a map?
North Korea? South Korea?
what about West and East Korea?
Where is home for you?
instead of sounding
like a list of place names
memorized for a junior high geography quiz
her reply sounds more like a melody
Home is wherever my sisters are
wherever my sisters are
Home is wherever my two hundred thousand
Korean brothers and sisters
are scattered around the globe
three continents
thirty countries
Home is in Amsterdam
we stroll canals
Van Gogh museum
Red Light district
Home is in Copenhagen
I meet a Norwegian brother and sister
we drink ourselves silly
dance and sing karaoke
until we are kicked out
of the smoky, dimly lit bar
Home is in Oslo
Norwegian folk village tour
browse local pop music scene,
end our day
at the only Korean restaurant
in the city
Home is in London
you dodge bombs on buses
we wait to hear I’m okay
Home is in America
all across the Land of the Free
Home of the Brave
we gather in city after city after city
because we can
Tumbling Twin Towers
cannot keep us apart
though other forces did for decades
Home is in Australia
my sister
sends me her love
through cyberspace
Home is in Bangkok
my brother feeds me
gives me shelter for the night
we dine at the North Korean restaurant
end the evening at a room salon
Home is in Korea
in a candlelit garden
we gather to remember a brother
we never met
yet around the world
we celebrate his life
that ended too soon
In Korea, home is on the soccer field
where German, French, Italian, Danish, English,
mispronounced and misunderstood Korean
mix with the dust from our cleats
Home is in thirty countries on four continents
no matter that our Korean tongues
are now twisted like pretzels
we can no longer communicate with each other
much less pronounce each other’s names
we are bound by a tie
we did not choose
but cannot be broken
So wherever you are
my brothers and sisters
Mattias, Dominique, Jos, Charlotte,
Bree, Susan, Jeff, Suryoon, Sang
my dongsaengs
my oppas, my unnis
wherever you are
that is home