I Want to Talk to You About the Weather by Mark Kyungsoo Bias

Took a walk in the snow and didn’t want to 

write, but I was thinking of you. I want to talk 

to you about fear. In my younger years, I wished 

that everything I put in my body would kill me. 

The things I carried lived with us. Made the bed 

a mess and threw things into the future. I want 

to talk to you about guilt. Before I turned 

eighteen, the priest told me I was officially broken. 

After the night I left, walking drunk into the next 

decade, there was so much I’d forgotten. 

It’s been a long time since memory. Since my mother lost 

me. I want to talk to you about nothing. 

About how late your train was. How late I am because,

did you know, they’re still doing work on i-95? 

If you were here, we would talk about the weather. 

If you were here, we would spend the whole day inside.

Mark Kyungsoo Bias is a recipient of the 2022 Joseph Langland Prize and the 2020 William Matthews Poetry Prize. Recent and forthcoming publications include The Academy of American Poets, The Adroit Journal, Asheville Poetry Review, Best New Poets, The Common, PANK, Washington Square Review, and Wildness, among other journals. A semi-finalist for the 92Y Discovery Prize, he has received support from Kundiman and Tin House, and holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he was a REAL Fellow.

24 October 2022