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Hyejung Kook
And where beside, I
to press the bitter olive into purest oil
while I would have I could not
as ivy slips through the cracked window
all together they went trooping down the path
when you hold my elbow just so
I split from crown to root
like a peony unable to flourish
without winter’s long chill
Hyejung Kook’s poetry has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Hyphen Magazine, The Indianapolis Review, Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and wildness, Other works include an essay in The Critical Flame and Flight, a chamber opera libretto. She is a Fulbright grantee and a Kundiman fellow.