Father is a money machine. That he sends
money overseas doesn’t solve my queries
about mother: why she sleeps
like a crouching cat,
why she ages, her body becoming
a globe, though smaller each year,
why she insists on sharing
food or a cup of soda at a restaurant
in the country of individualism.
With her legs and backs curled up
leaning against the bottom of the sofa,
and her bent knees under her chest,
she gazes somewhere,
her eyes full of arithmetic. “22,000, 25,000…”

Don’t worry, mother, it’s almost dinnertime.
Sunset invades the living room,
your black hair
now unanticipated grey.
The phone rings-
you ask me how much I’d say we need.
Before I catch you
who’ve already turned into
a complete globe, you roll away
from the call, I’m stuck in between,
both arms stretching out to neither side.


수상소감
한국을 떠나 타국에서, 지속적으로 문학을 사랑하고 그 문학을 공유하며 더 나은 문학을 위해 애쓰는 워싱턴문인회에 감사하다는 말씀 전하고 싶습니다. 신인문학상을 통해, 시를 쓰는 저에게 앞으로 더 영향력 있는 시를 쓸 수 있도록 격려해주셔서 고맙습니다.

<송진아>