Home for a pan-fried mackerel dinner,
my mother watches my chopsticks stumble
around the 가시. Full after a few bites,
I remember a story. When I was a baby
I choked on a fishbone at my grandparents’ house. My dad
wasn’t there. They yelled at my mother
for not inspecting each flaky bit of fish I put
in my clumsy mouth, not teaching me
the maneuvering of spiky slivers with my tongue,
how to place the needles next to my plate,
extract white meat clean. Ever since, she peels and holds
skeletons above our meal—fossils before me.
Still, I am bad at pulling bone from fish, cutting
skin from pears, which means I’ll never
get married. But what about the nights where my mouth
drips with SunGold kiwi, looking over
at my love, my lips smacking unabashedly.
Me cupping the furry layer in my palm, and you
standing over the sink eating it whole.
What would our mothers say? We laugh while I tell you
the story of how once, a splinter burrowed
into the meat of my thumb, and I kept it there for weeks.
Told my parents the splinter came out on its own
while I hoped my body would absorb the slender spear
and disappear the 가시 painlessly.
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