Han River, Midnight

Banpo Bridge, 12:16 AM the rainbow fountains are off tonight January, obviously the river black and certain below taxi lights crossing the bridge above and I am stopped at the railing doing what people do when they stop at railings over water at midnight which is: standing which is: standing in the cold which is: waiting for the water to offer something You never liked this bridge you preferred Mapo, the quieter crossing you said the rainbow fountains were the city trying too hard to be beautiful when it could just be what it was a river between two halves a city that split itself in half to build something on both sides I didn't know the water knew you I didn't know I'd find your name in the way the current moves past the bridge supports patient as anything patient as the thing I couldn't say while you were still here to hear it I didn't know I loved you until the water knew your name I didn't know how much until the bridge between the city halves at midnight, January, cold the river moving south the same south as the train the same direction everything that matters always seems to be going I didn't know I didn't know until the water knew your name The thing about grief is it arrives like a wrong turn you didn't notice you're walking north thinking north and then suddenly you are at the railing at midnight and the feeling is not general it is specific, it has your name on it it has the address of your last apartment in Mapo-gu it has the number of your voice note from March near Cheonggyecheon it sounds exactly like your laugh before whatever you were laughing at I should have said it the way people say it in the sentences they mean not as a closing salutation not as a shorthand between people who've known each other long enough to let language get lazy I should have said: you are someone I would cross a river for I should have said that when the river was irrelevant I didn't know the water knew you I didn't know I'd find your name written in the current in the cold in the nothing-to-see here of a January river at midnight I didn't know I loved you until the water knew your name I didn't know how much until the bridge between the city halves at midnight, January, cold the river moving south the same south as the train the same direction everything that matters always seems to be going I didn't know I didn't know until the water knew your name You came to this city and you learned it the way you learned everything: in pieces, sideways, from someone else's mistake. You knew which GS25 stayed warm past 2 AM. You knew which exit at Hongdae Station let you out closest to the music. You knew the way the Han River looked in the hour before anyone was watching it— before the joggers, before the couples, in the blue-grey light that Seoul tries to hide behind its glass and its commerce. I am standing in that light now. I am standing in the light you knew before I knew to look for it. You always moved through this city like it owed you something, like the streets had agreed in advance to lead somewhere worth arriving at. I don't know what you were walking toward at the intersection of Yeoksam-ro and Teheran-ro on January 15th at 6:47 PM. I don't know what you were arriving at. I know the city kept moving. I know the train on Line 2 ran on time. I know the river is south of the bridge the way it has always been south. And I know that I am standing here saying your name into water because water receives without judgment. Water doesn't ask why. Water just goes where it goes. Go where you're going. Go. I didn't know I loved you until the water knew your name I didn't know how much until the bridge at midnight held my weight and the city kept its lights on the way the city always keeps its lights on indifferent, gorgeous, insufficient I didn't know I didn't know The river south the train south you south the direction grief always points toward the place where the distance between us became permanent south