Best Poems Written by Hyuna Kim

Mother Moon

I am three, and my mother is driving the car 
at night. I sit in the silent back seat falling 
in and out of sleep but every time I surface 
I see a silver eye staring at me.
It is the moon.
Thirty minutes, an hour, two hours, and still 
she is there, a spot on my window, so close
I could hold her in my cupped hands
and not spill.

“Mother,” I say, “why does the moon follow me?”
“Because she loves you.”

I am five, and my mother is lying beside me 
in my small bed in the awful dark.  
“Sleep well, my baby,” she sings in Korean, 
“don’t cry, you rooster
or my baby might wake.”
But I am only half listening to the surface
of my mother’s silver voice. 

After she leaves, the moon outside 
goes on humming the rest of her song.

Copyright © Hyuna Kim | Year Posted 2008