Summer smoke

Cigarette smoke in the summer heat

Evokes memories of:

Small neighborhood arcades, where machines eat up coin after coin,

Strikers 1945, Gunbird, Metal Slug.

Ha! Flamethrower! Take that, mummies!

Memories of:

Spicy fermented cabbage and buckwheat noodles,

Bean paste stew and broiled fish.

Soups, stews, and casseroles aren't just a Midwest thing,

Although there's less tater tots and more bean sprouts.

Of:

Banana milk and walnut ice cream,

Pepero and fish-shaped pastry filled with red bean paste,

Dried squid and shrimp crackers,

Seaweed and Chilsung Cider.

:

Conversations over seafood pancakes and rice liquor

With your aunts and uncles,

Telling you how your parents met

At a group hang out where your dad was supposed to meet your mom's friend

But he saw your mom and never looked back.

And then asking when you will meet a nice Korean girl.

Cigarette smoke in the summer heat

Evokes memories of a place that

Isn't quite home,

Isn't quite foreign,

But an elsewhere to which I belong, somehow.

Seriously, Korean men smoke a lot. It's a significant public health concern.