By José Alvergue

By Victoria McArtor We are supposed to think there’s an imaginary motorcycle and we are supposed to be in this position as if we are riding the motorcycle… You are bound to fall forward. Everybody in the detention centre goes through this kind of torture. — Kim Kwang-il Think motorcycle without hot girth between the legs, hold yourself apart like this.Think of riding south down Kaesŏng highway with, what was her name, nostalgia is such a distorting force. Try not to think of the crime—not the pine nuts I stole but the eating of them from her hand, as soon as we can pull this thing over to rest, or think instead she’d be eating me from her own hand, or think I could be still in shell, or a tree, I could be roots traveling south pushing towards the East China Sea. Or rather be the sea.Calm down, I think she’s saying to me. We ride & nothing is so mysterious as her body coming to a close around me she’s tight as a whip she’s as rough as the road of the trip, she’s the light near the darkness she is herself an abyss and I take her... Read More