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  • Eating Together
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Eating Together

Li-Young Lee

In the steamer is the trout
seasoned with slivers of ginger.
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
brothers, sister, my mother who will
taste the sweetest meat of the head,
holding it between her fingers
deftly, the way my father did
weeks ago. Then he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him,
without any travellers, and lonely for no-one.


Li-Young Lee

from From Blossoms – Selected Poems (Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2007)

Reproduced by kind permission of the author.

Tags:

bereavement families fish food

About this poem

This poem, representing Indonesia, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

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