[Editor’s Note: Mike Sluchinski has created two audio versions of this poem on Youtube, one in English and one in Korean. Enjoy!]

they start in a song and they move
in circles only twisting and then the songs begin
they offer stares and laughter and tricks
in the vegetables trampling all
but the radish and lingering in
the cabbage yards kicking old
wood and fence posts
leaves for hats

i hear them chasing the rabbits
the moonlit new moon and then
chewing through my twine and
the missing carrot tops and 
others pushed down so 
much and rabbits can’t
trample but the dokkaebi

they wrap and fan in pumpkin
leaves they wear the flowers
behind their sharp ears and
poke and pierce the orange 
green flesh the gourds with 
no safety in the new moon

one waits for night to end
sweeps past and hides their
footprints the dark evidence
but I see the fear in the eyes
of deer and badger and in 

the morning the fox will
take the blame for the blood
on the stones and the
feathers from hens
dragged off by the
new moon and the dokkaebi dance

[Mike Sluchinski believes in property rights, no trespassing signs, and the second coming. Including beverages. Most of his work runs ekphrastic and stream of consciousness based on his own experiences. He acknowledges the Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Foundation for their tangible dedication to the arts. Gratefully published by Kelp Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal (SOFLOPOJO), Freefall, In Media Res, Viewless Wings(Dublin Poetry Walk ’24) with more coming!]