HOME /  Poem :  A weekly poem, read by the author.

Skins

By |Posted Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2003, at 7:47 AM ET

Listen to Suji Kwok Kim reading this poem. Pretend I can't see the lady in pearls mistaking me for the kitchen help I could have been, or be.

Pretend I can't see
the busboy still working at seventy
bend over painfully.

Pretend I can't see
the maitre d'
pretending not to see.

"Dare you see a Soul—at the White Heat?"
"Anger: anger's my meat."
"So I did sit and eat."

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Suji Kwock Kim's first book, Notes From the Divided Country, won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her poems have been featured in The Nation, the New Republic, Paris Review, and on NPR's Weekend Edition and All Things Considered.

Clickhere to visit Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project site.To submit poetry to Slate, send up to five poems and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Robert Pinsky, Slate Magazine, Boston University, 236 Bay State Road, Boston, MA, 02215.