FIREMAN

Pyromaniac, animated by fire
traveling up and down tornado’s topless
gyre after disaster
struck the gas
station, lingers. A troll, caveless.

Bells toll,
and the fireman mobilizes, city blocks
embroiled in ever-widening flame.
No one knows why he is the only fireman.

Rushing toward and warding off blazing
pieces of house and furniture
ripped apart by gale
hailing down like meteors, he strides
over and stands to cover onlookers
with his immensity,

all futures
depending on nothing else catching fire.
the firehose writhes, gloved fists
white-knuckled within
fireproof leather,
a serpent seized by thunderclaps.

Red tongues swirling with white rings,
sky melting
into question marks. The
fireman running to each incineration like a child
on his rollercoaster.

FALLOUT

Conundrum of unceasing drumbeat
pulsing under concrete gets more
complicated
when subterraneans rejected from
terra firma confirm: a
noise similar

to one we hear ringing tunnels,
but it isn’t their
doing.
These eel-looking
creatures illness-prone
easily burnt by radiated rays

writhing near,
worms coming out in rain
lying like snakes.
No lakes.
No lakes.

In downpour worms
re-oriented, gave last their squirm.
Invertebrate limbs beating
like pavement’s exposed vein linked
to a hidden heart.

stepping on them, I tripped.
inside a textbook illustration
worms made illustrious babies
of elusive birth.

Jack Saebyok Jung once planned on drawing vampire hunters and mech pilots—but then he stumbled into poetry and never left. A Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he helped bring Yi Sang: Selected Works to life (Wave Books, 2020). He’s also a 2024 NEA Translation Fellow working on Kim Hyesoon’s Lady No for Ecco Press in 2026. Meanwhile, his own poetic sorcery, Hocus Pocus Bogus Locus (Black Square Editions, 2025), proves he’s not afraid of a little word magic.