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The old window gave a grand view of Yellow Tree, trunk to branch. They called it Yellow Tree even though the gingko was yellow for only about a week each year, its fan-shaped leaves rustling to the ground at the first suggestion of a breeze. Annie and Edward held the baby to the window and said, “See? Yellow!” But she was too small to say “yellow” in response. She just looked and watched and touched the glass. They wiped her fingerprints from the window and kissed the fingers that made the prints. Then the leaves fell, and the scenery changed. Some views show less than half of what needs seeing.

When the rent became unpayable, they went in search of a more affordable living situation. What’s your living situation? Annie turned the phrase over in her mind, the situation of their life. They had not saved nearly enough for a broker’s fee, let alone a security deposit.

“It looks smaller than it really is,” Edward said, leading Annie around the new apartment. A dimly lit lopsided square. “Give it some time, it might grow on you!”

“You mean it might literally grow?” Annie asked.

At the new apartment, there were no views of Yellow Tree. The introverted windows were gated and clasped and huddled around a central shaft that Edward dubbed Pigeon Tunnel. Edward and Annie liked inventing proper nouns for their world. Yellow Tree, Pigeon Tunnel, Closet Mystery. Closet Mystery was Annie’s term for the mystery of their single, overstuffed closet. Upon opening, what would catapult forth? It was a bona fide enigma. Edward and Annie picked a proper noun for their baby too. Her noun was Rose.

GO MIN
숙자야 (Sook Ja-yah)
I wasn’t born here, did you know that?
I’ve never told you that before
I was born on an island nearby
Really close, only a few hours away on a boat
A matchmaker bought my brother a drink
So he told her that he had the perfect bride for her client
An exceptional swimmer
A hearty bruise-woman
For a guarantee of lifetime of income
He gave me away
My big brother sold my life for a drink
And that’s my immigration
A little immigration of my own
Just to be beaten up by the sea waves all day
And then beaten up by my loser drunk husband all night

Silence

숙자야 (Sook Ja-yah)
What do you want to do in your next life?
In my next life
I want to drive a car
A little red one
Drive it everywhere
Go see the mountains
The big buildings
Drive it across the prairies
Take the highway
I don’t have a driver’s license
I can’t take the written test because I can’t read
But when I see someone drive a car on TV
It looks easy
I think I could do it
I think I’d be good at it
Maybe I could drive a cab
Drive people around
What do you think?
You think I’d be good at it?

Beat

숙자야 (Sook Ja-yah)
In your next life
I hope you get to live the way you want

Silence
 

The Sade who joins you at the hotel restaurant is not the Sade who gave you all the love she got she gave you more than she could give she gave you love. But she is a Sade who, you realize after a bit of googling, can flex muscles in her leg that most people will never know about and who may be one of the best dancers in the world even though she went to school to be a doctor. She will talk to you about making paintings in Romania while you eat food that tastes like dreams of food.

A waiter whose persona seems to have been inspired by the Steve Martin hamburger scene in the remake of The Pink Panther keeps pouring wine. You win an argument about the name of a jazz biopic even though your sparring partner has spent some SERIOUS time with Wynton Marsalis. By the end of the day you will have heard stories about artists whose names you have searched for in the stacks of many libraries, like one that begins with “Romie called me one morning” and ends with a dick joke the butt of which is, somehow, the New York Times. You fall asleep in a blue room on a mattress that wants your lower back to just go ahead and peace out. But you feel like the number-one luckiest girl in the world.

Downstairs in the dark, Aunt Jemima smiles from the confines of a painting, giving everybody the middle finger.