salvation
Chiwan Choi
on the northwest corner
of 7th and broadway at 7:45am,
i wait by the newspaper stand
where i buy
my double A batteries.
across 7th,
they are already out,
the street preachers
witnessing in spanish.
there are sometimes different ones on each corner—
a korean teen, because koreans are nothing if not subtle,
holding a giant sign over his head proclaiming
god says read bible or die!;
sometimes a black man with a nice hat
on the northeast corner
few yards from clifton’s cafeteria;
a couple of white boys now and again,
in white shirts and black ties.
i call this salvation corner
and i walk through it each morning with my dog,
back and forth, between 7 and 8am.
when we first moved down here,
judy looked at the sign on the marquee
outside the old state theater,
where now instead of movies they have church,
and she said,
‘jesus christ is the mister,’
and pointed.
i read it too—
jesucristo es el señor—
and nodded
and we repeated this to each other,
jesus christ is the mister,
our mantra for the rest of the week.
and at 9:06am,
i drink last night’s wine,
bitter and warm,
looking at the phone when it lights up.
it tells me
bad bad people want all my money
because that’s how i’ve added
all the collection agency numbers into my address book
so i could assign them a silent ringtone.
this is how it begins:
another day’s waiting
for the sparrows to return to our balcony,
where we found them when we first moved in
for death
for salvation
for cancer
for a heart attack
for broken corner jesuses.
the ending goes like this:
she is standing by the dresser i found in the hallway,
thrown away by another tenant that lost his job and had to move.
naked,
the bruise on her left arm from our last fight
is exposed about an inch below her shoulder,
the fight that left my right index finger with torn ligaments
and the nightshirt she’s owned since 12
ripped to pieces on the floor.
that night of tequila
and trying not to talk about my leg that keeps breaking,
trying not to talk about torn marriage,
trying not to talk about our dead baby.
all that’s not spoken of coming out
in screams
and punches
and spit—
the dog hiding under the desk.
we are drunk again,
what’s left of the open wine bottles souring on the table.
we crawl into bed.
we have switched sides so i can be by the window
where the cold air slips in through the cracks.
i lick her neck
until it smells like grapes.
‘so drunk,’ she says
soon she is snoring
and whimpering in her sleep
and i place my hand on her stomach,
tell that place
i am ready,
i am ready now,
until i fall asleep.
at 4:15am,
we are both awake again in the dark.
she can’t sleep when the alcohol wears off
and i can’t sleep when she is drowning.
‘you okay?’ i ask
‘yeah,’ she says. ‘drank too much.’
‘i’ll make fish soup tomorrow,’ i say
‘ok,’ she says.
'ok,' i say.
Chiwan Choi is a writer, editor, teacher, and publisher. He has been a member of the Los Angeles Poets & Writers Collective since 1989. His poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including ONTHEBUS, Esquire, and circa. Chiwan’s first major collection of poetry, The Flood, was published by Tía Chucha Press in April, 2010.
He is a regular in the Los Angeles literary circuit, often invited as a featured poet at readings at The Hotel Cafe in Hollywood and the legendary Beyond Baroque in Venice. He also leads two writing workshops, one in downtown and one in Santa Monica.
After a two-year stint in New York, where he received an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School at NYU, Chiwan returned to Los Angeles where he and his wife, Judeth Oden, launched a new publishing company to feature Los Angeles writers, Writ Large Press, in March 2008.
He lives in Downtown Los Angeles with his wife and their dog, Bella.
