±That after all this I have still chosen life.
That I have made a way out of one death
in friendship and sex. My Virgil is weak.
The first circumstance the Georgics lead
me: to a question I can farm still in hell,
pretty as it seems to dig out a black pot
to return a shy sapling to itself. A rich man
buys a pasture, 4-acres, tills only a quarter
of his land. Wildflowers, the rest: seeds,
and hope drifting under. A green brigade
to surprise us: purple asters bright cut,
upside down, in reverse, hung to dry.
May I invoke Blake? A grand mother
hanging on the wrong side of the street.
Heliotrope-me from a distance: deadhead
greying and delicate to the passing breeze.
Fragrant after of oil and age, flake. Vigil
-me awake to a life worth saving past
my ken. Friends bear scissors to cut me
down. Press me to a book I have loved,
or so I may have said once in passing.
Asa will know I have born seeds, and slip
my dried life into an envelope, a red pen
taking my name: JIMIN. Dust to seed
in the unbiblical cadence of a maimed poet:
JIMIN. Esther snips my stem to curl me
into a ring. How fond she is of the victor
in Victorian. Patricia comes bearing herself.
My oldest, dearest friend who has survived
herself so fully in ways I was never able to
gain. In my return my lovers come. Matthew,
first love who is married. Gabriel, my second,
married. In my failures you have found a new
way out and I am not unhappy. I suppose
I am to be farming, led as I am by a mystic
who has written before me. I have spread
myself in a sweat of a forgiveness I must
receive. I have not led a bad life but should I
like to do it better isn’t this what hell is for?
From a distance swaying with rake lifted. High
progress I give myself. Forgive me, myself.
Copyright © 2026 by Jimin Seo. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 15, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
