You are the North and I am the South.
 
My tanks aim for you. I shoot you a thousand times.
Your missiles launch into my oceans. You raise monuments to scorn me.
 
You eat clams cooked in gasoline. 
I drink milk and cider. I raise skyscrapers of businessmen.

You build towers of empty rooms. You refuse me from where I am most loved. 
I clean a wintermelon of its guts and seeds cling to my wet fingers.
 
Aren’t you the North, and I the South? 
Phantom, disease, you’re trembling. There is no patience in my country.
 
There is no safest place in yours. 
The heart stiffens at the sound of church bells. I wonder where you sleep now.

You are the North and I am the South. 
I cannot see the sky beyond the ceiling.
 
I cannot forgive you for cutting me out.
 I see all my ground, and you, walking over me—before you were
 
the North and I was the South. 
A photographer captures a mass execution on film.
 
Men and women tied to posts, blindfolded—Korean spies. 
The man nearest to the camera fiddles with his blindfold
 
until it rests comfortably over his eyes.