In Nae

To be the teacher people would guess
has children of his own;
to return as much as I have taken.

Asking you to dress in uniform
means more than a simple change of clothes.
Barefeet, the deep V shaped neckline
(girls’ undershirts peek out from here).

Yours, by sake of being brand new,
unfolds into a Korean map.
Mountains stippling the fabric.

Their entire heights are capped in snow.
The white belt comes from Heaven, remember?
The same as truth and happiness.

My belt is frayed and knotted up
but that’s how they used to get it black:
the sweat of trial, the Earth of error.

There are skid marks here from when
a practice knife had slipped, and, there,
a half an asterisk of blood

but nothing like the body beneath.
My shins are pebbled beaches.
My toe will never grow straight again.

You’d know this if we changed together more often
through the small amounts of nakedness
that can’t escape our eyes. I’m sorry.

We begin your test across a distance.
I know it’s hard to stand so far;
you’ve always practiced next to me.

It’s not that you were a shadow, whose shape
is only ever an after thought.
You are water that learns by nearness.

Push ups, burpees, and suicides.
It’s just their names, remember that?
I think I even see you smile.

Your first mistake is also mine:
a punch too high. I point it out
but stop myself; the help I give
must come before or after now.

I remember when I fought so hard
my dojang mates had to carry me home
and a cop car stopped to ask if I was OK

or when I tried to elbow through
a brick, the shock of pain as neat
as the staggered edge of a leaf. Or when …

You’re huffing now, paying the price
for my second mistake: not stopping you,
not knowing the weight of your faith in me.

Instead of kicks, give me a tenet
of Tae Kwon Do. (We practiced for weeks,
were in cahoots. Remember them?)

You choose perseverance, not courtesy
or integrity or indomitable
spirit or victory or love.

In Nae, I correct in faulted Korean.
I tighten my voice as best I can.
I won’t be caught off guard again.

My master’s stare could stop the breeze.
Grandmaster used a switch to speak.
You’re lucky all I have are words.

You tremble how a bridge is built to:
enough for me to second guess
if it were engineered at all.

Our game is done. I rush to shield
you from the floor. It’s luck that my arms
remember the days they were soft from work.

If I will ever be the kind
of man that makes a good father,
I’d let you see me smile. I’m sorry.

You want to continue and stand again
but when I turn around you fold
back into a sheaf of paper on the floor.

Forget martial arts. A determined will,
that thing you have, is worth the world
whomever you decide to be.

It’s hard to look at you and not
forget I’m Mr. Chin. I want to be
Shi Huang Di, of Qin,

and you, my bronze collosus, forged
from all the siezed weapons in China,
brilliant and heavy but useless for war.