Emily Jungmin Yoon

Affection

We watch the moving topography of brutality, the red slopes
and orbs mapping deaths from the virus, from fire, from firearms.

It feels impossible to think red and visualize beauty and yet
red roses are splashed all around the city, so brazenly alive

that they stupefy me. People stop, pose, take pictures
of their loved ones under the mess of flowers.

I love the red beak of the rose-ringed parakeet even after I find
the threat they pose on the land I live. Affection means both fondness and disease.

Words reflect the world, which is to say nothing makes sense.
If we say only civilization can finish the world,

does it mean to complete or destroy? If we say the world might weather—
to endure or wear away?

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