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EJ Koh is the author of memoir The Magical Language of Others (Tin House, 2020) and the poetry collection A Lesser Love. She earned her MFA in poetry and the translation of Korean poetry from Columbia University and is a PhD candidate in English language and literature at the University of Washington in Seattle.

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Tiger Balm and Other Poems

by EJ Koh
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Tiger Balm

Yellow pears, basketfuls, relate to distance
between the you and the me—mu.

Startling up as you walk goosefooted
through my door. I am heavy.


I feel the continent under me. I am 99
percent hydrocarbon.
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