You only need a couple of roasted
grains of barley and some water.
When the slightly bitter waft
of the boiling kettle tickles your skin,
open the cap and watch the
harvest of brown petals
swirl into the figure
of a woman stooping over the field.
She whistles a hushed song akin
vapor and homes left behind,
not sad, just painfully gentle,
as she follows a trail of sheaves
left for her to pick up.
She does not have to look up
to know that she has found favor
in the eyes of a new love.
And so she gleans grains roasted in the twilight
until you know that your tea,
in faith,
has brewed enough.
Born in South Korea and raised in Peru, Ae Hee Lee is currently based in Wisconsin and is the author of ASTERISM, selected for the 2022 Dorset Prize, and the poetry chapbooks Bedtime || Riverbed, Dear bear, and Connotary, the last of which won the 2021 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. She is a Poetry Coalition Fellow, Just Buffalo Literary Center Fellow, and Adroit Journal Gregory Djanikian Scholar. She has also received scholarships and honors from the Academy of American Poets, AWP, Bread Loaf, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, among others.
