“Someone recently fell/into an industrial mixer at the latter’s factory./The company sent bread/from the same facility to her funeral.”
Today is my birthday.
I ordered my own cake—
blatantly against Korean tradition,
but I will have a delicious treat
from a small shop that makes them on-site,
rather than some chain’s concoction
with a chemical aftertaste.
Someone recently fell
into an industrial mixer at the latter’s factory.
The company sent bread
from the same facility to her funeral.
Huge scandal, but as accidents go
hereabouts, not the worst.
Blame-shifting for lives lost
in the Itaewon crowd-crush continues.
“Adults” aren’t taking responsibility
for not preventing the Halloween disaster
wherein young people who hadn’t celebrated
half as many birthdays as I
died in masked revelry.
Christina E. Petrides, an American, started writing poetry on Jeju Island, South Korea, where she lived for six and a half years. Her verse collection is On Unfirm Terrain, which was released with Kelsay Books in 2022. Her children’s books are Blueberry Man, which was released in 2020; The Refrigerator Ghost, which was released in 2022; Tea Cakes, Quilts, and Sonshine, which was released in 2022; and Mr. Fisher’s Whiskers, which was released in 2024.
