If anyone ever tells you homosexuality was brought to Korea by the West, laugh for a bit and then show them this poem.
A Memory by Yi Chongbo
Translated by Kevin O'Rourke
I'll never forget the boy
who slept here last night.
He could be the son of a tilemaker, the way clay yields
Or the scion of a mole, the way
he burrows and thrusts, or perhaps the stripling
of a seaman, the way the oar answers his pulse
His first experience, he avows, a claim that raises
certain doubts.
I've had my share before
and I'll assume I'll have some more, but the memory of that
boy last night is a pleasure I shall always store.
Good poem, good translation. Well, I'm off to the US for ten days. I'll probably still be blogging, but maybe not as much as I have been lately.
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