KATE CHOI / “STILL”
Featured poem from our first issue, “Blue Lounge”.
Still
after Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth
When I was seven I split
my lip, having tripped running
after my brothers, stained
the brittle straw ground straw-
berry pink. When I was eight,
a stroll became a spill, gravity stealing
my bones from my skeleton. I remember
the silt in my teeth: sticky,
strange, salt—a sting
on my tongue.
Finally a stumble
became more than a stumble.
At sixteen, I went to the dance,
but left when I could
not stand any longer. Twisted,
my knees shook
into each other like blind
deer. Steer me
from stillness, I begged
the doctors, & my mother stood shaking
her head. They declared my strength
gone—stuck—there’s nothing left
to stitch together.
She cannot stand, cannot
step or stretch, they said:
our recommendation is
she stop trying. Still I strapped
in, strapped on
those stiff scuffed shoes. Even stick-
thin I strung the belt around my waist
over the dress soft
as sunset. I am not yet
a statistic. Still
I crawl strong strut
across fields wistful
but steeled, like a
spine, stare
at the static hanging heavy
above me. Lightning will strike.
Sitting in the window, Alvaro calls
safety first. But part of me
would like to stay:
I am no statue. I am still
strong enough to watch
as the starving
storms stun life
into wasted trees.
Kate K. Choi is a high school senior living in Seoul, South Korea. Her writing has been recognized by the National YoungArts Foundation, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the Seoul International Women's Association, and more. Additionally, she has work published or forthcoming in Diode Poetry Journal, Body Without Organs, Ice Lolly Review, The Hearth Magazine, and After Dinner Conversation, among others. She is currently seventeen years old.
