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"Night Swim" from Joan Kwon Glass' debut NIGHT SWIM




Night Swim




In February, a man in flippers and wetsuit swims undetected

across the East Sea, along the border of North and South Korea.


Once on land, he crawls through a drain beneath barbed wire,

walks for miles before being caught.


Video footage shows him at 4 a.m. in Goseon village,

security tower strobe light flashing out, exposing him.


He takes a few steps forward, then teeters back,

hesitates, confused, afraid and hypothermic.


How many of us have swum through

current of grief or shock


only to find ourselves disoriented, standing

on the shore of a strange country?


After loss to suicide, the landscape doesn’t

change, but everything else does.


They don’t release the man’s name,

don’t show his face. Only the back of his body


as he staggers forward in the darkness, trying

to convince himself: I am home, I am home.




 



ISBN: 9781939728487

full-length poetry collection, 6x9" paperback

Publication Date: March 23, 2022

Location: Doha, Qatar & Richmond, VA

Distribution: Distributed by Diode Editions

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