Home > Work > The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018
1 " A LITTLE SONG AND A RECEIPT.Doe: a deer, a female deer—Often chased by sonneteers of old.Caught, and killed, and bathed in fear,turned to human blazons to be sold—Eyes—$twin models of the stars.Skin—$fine tissue wrought from gold.Lips—$your favorite kind of flower.Sex—$a secret still untold/ a Silk Road to unfold/ a thing for you to mold/ a source by you controlled.Total: $—————.— "
― Sheila Heti , The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018
2 " Language spoken by parents to each other: fluent Korean. I grew up hearing marriage as a foreign language—literally and figuratively. I grew up hearing the sound of Korean as a language of Korean-bound han syndrome, disappointment, fury, resignation, the sense of being trapped forever, resentment, guilt. Every other word: a door slammed. "
3 " News“…she fell into the water from the sky…” Jae-in DoeDecedent is an Asian female.Twenty-two she just had turned.The cause of death we cannot tellDespite the many things we’ve learned. TOP SECRETMy Doe-type can be difficult to track.Yet here I am, my voice-box playing backFrom lips hydrangea-lavender in hueHis thoughts during our first few interviews. The hair is shoulder-length, the color black. The height and weight suggest she won’t fight back. The fingernails are unadorned and short. The eyes are brown; no makeup do they sport. The skin appears unpierced and untattooed, Yet scars of ruby-pearl seem to protrude Like self-inflicted jewelry on each arm And wrist—which means she’s vulnerable to harm. The language of her flesh, as I assess her, Reveals Confucian worship of professors. Her deference Korean gives me right To use her innocence for my delight. "
4 " Sometimes I dream that his rare book collectionIs made of all “his” women turned to fiction. "
5 " MUTANT BLAZONMy rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun.To look at them will mean that I go blind.His mouth beside my ear—they form a gun.Each breath: a bullet targeting my mind.My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun.His throat: a fist to silence mine designed.His reason: a ventriloquist’s illusion.No tenor in the end could hearing find.My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun—Too close for any vessel with a mind.Survive or get to die—that is the question.No longer have I any will to mind.My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun—Not dead, not living, neither keen nor blind;A daily haunting; memory rebegun;Disaster in some future undivined.I write, rewrite, a “sonnet” about rapeTo hunt that voice I wish I could escape. "
