(for Sin Yong-Mok)



Cross-cultural implies there are cultures

to cross. There are bodies and languages
sure, but cultures? What is so innately different

between kimchi and vegemite
these things one eats, then one forgets about

as they’re transformed into a dark universal paste
in one’s stomach? Identity was always

an object of false consciousness, comrade
propped up by the true parasites to prevent

us from uniting (to lose our shackles) and so
there’s nothing innately different between

Squid Game and Mad Max: moving images
that depict the horror of the contemporary either

in Seoul or in the Aussie outback. If
there’s something to cross it’s what we assume

separates us, not what separates us. Let’s
assume better. Let’s assume we can unite (act as

if) we can defeat the horrors, or outdo them
by becoming a dark universal entity

beyond culture and identity. Then there’ll be
truths other than the facts of languages

and bodies, vegemite and kimchi, cultures and crosses.