"It's too hot for you out here,"
I came and whispered in your ear,
"And you have cut enough rice for one day," I said.
And the sun was close to the flooded paddy,
And sweat poured from the terraces of your skin,
And I longed to harvest the very hairs from your arms,
And take you Into me
And prepare you properly.
But you had to win
Some unknown contest,
Another trophy for your mind,
And so you bent your stiff neck
Only to the plow.

And so we never said goodbye,
But I went back alone to the university.
I work with a team mapping the genome of Oryza Sativa.
But today I sat alone
In a bar across the street from the lab
And sipped soju.
My mind was blank
And I could see
That I am still as close to you
As the wet shirt you wear today,
Though, I too, am thin and worn.

But that shirt is something you would miss,
And you would hear it calling you
To ask you goodbye.
But then again, it would never ask.

-jenn