When you peel back a Type-B woman,
beans that sprouted upon dust spring forth.
With every sound of a rolling bean, a corner is carved out.
A corner: a place seen only
when you kneel and bow your head.
A place where tilted heads—
those nearly missed—begin to bud.
Therefore, shell the beans gently,
as if stroking them soft.
Such is the counsel of the corner.
Scattered sincerities
are gathered onto the dining table.
Within the husks, hollowed by heartache,
the rank regrets of things that lunged away
lie in a row, once-sunken pits.
Repeating mistakes cast far off in shallow sleep,
she opens her eyes to the morning sun.
From the woman’s listless calves, now a layer lighter,
baby mice flee in a frantic line.
“Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth”—
a fitting night resides within each bean pod.
Beans, born but a moment ago,
leave their hulls one after another
to simmer intimately, bubble-boil.
Every bean is nurturing
its own grain of a corner.
Profile
Poet Yeon Myeong-ji began her literary career in 2013 with the poetry collection 『Gashibi』, published in the Minerva Poetry Series.
Her published works include the poetry collections 『Sitting Like an Apple』 and 『Where would the House of the Sorry’ be? 』 the e-poetry collection 『Seventeen Marco Polos,』 and the travel essay 『Step by Step, Walking the Camino.』
She has received the Tolstoy Literary Award, the Homi Literary Award, the Cheongsong Gaekju Literary Award, and the Aviation Literary Award. In 2025, she was awarded the Bronze Prize in Poetry at the Literature Asia Awards.
Her poems have been translated and published in local languages in India, Pakistan, Kosovo, Italy, Egypt, the United States, and Belgium,Greece,and Iraq.
