Snow Grocer

sits amongst his wares facing
     a heater shaped like a fan with
no blades absorbing radiant heat
     like sun ra soaking up a cosmos

     with white gloves & thin white
hair he sits & laughs every time
     I try to guess what he just said
eg how much to pay for makkolli &

then one day he says eh tonight -
     snow! as if he knows what I am
thinking - how these skies look
     pregnant with ice, both of us

     smiling and laughing - tonight!
only it doesn't snow, not tonight
     or any other night this week but
still i trudge on down to him &

ask tonight snow? at which he
     shrugs or laughs or both yes,
tonight, snow then i realise
     he's been speaking in english

     for days & it hasn't snowed &
then in the dead of last night
     it fell down gently, like a rain
of makkolli on the hanok roof

& i thought about how quiet it
     was & how the sound of snow is
like a human breath on a window
     or footsteps on the world's head