She cleans out mackerel in the sink,
running a knife neatly through the silver underbelly
just as her mother had shown her so many years ago.

At fourteen, she ran away to Seoul,
living with a distant aunt and working
long hours in a factory.
She lasted a month in night school,
taking pills to stay awake until her nose bled from exhaustion.
For six years, she was begged to return home
before her mother and three brothers came to the city
without choice.

After moving to America, she saw her mother only once more,
who was by then frail from decades of wear,
her once-soft voice stolen by sickness.

Now, after three years of grief,
she has yet to visit the grave of the woman she called omoni.
She cries softly in the bathroom each night.
I pretend not to hear the sobs escaping through
the sound of running water.