Emily Jungmin Yoon

Emily Jungmin Yoon was born in Busan, Republic of Korea. Since the age of 10, she has lived in Victoria, BC, Philadelphia, and New York, and currently splits her time between Seoul and Honolulu. She earned her BA in English and communication at the University of Pennsylvania and her MFA in creative writing at New York University. Her poems and translations have appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry magazine, Columbia Journal Online, Pinwheel.

Between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Today

I read a Korean poem

with the line “Today you are the youngest

you will ever be.” Today I am the oldest

I have been. Today we drink

buckwheat tea. Today I have heat

in my apartment. Today I think

about the word chada in Korean.

It means cold. It means to be filled with.

It means to kick. To wear. Today we’re worn.

Today you wear the cold. Your chilled skin.

My heart kicks on my skin. Someone said

winter has broken his windows. The heat inside

and the cold outside sent lightning across glass.

Today my heart wears you like curtains. Today

it fills with you. The window in my room

is full of leaves ready to fall. Chada, you say. It’s tea.

We drink. It is cold outside.

— Emily Jungmin Yoon