Coffee with SUGA at a Samoyed Café in Seoul by Angeline Schellenberg
I’ll write you a poem about tangerines. But I’m not ready to try it in Korean, so maybe anything will do. When I heard you started a music therapy centre for autistic children, I fell in love before I’d ever heard you rap. I want to know why. Did a young you like someone like me? Are you anything like me? Will you tell me about your cat, how he compares to these giants in our arms, making our heartbeats slow? Your music opened a door. I won’t waste time asking your ideal type or what you had for breakfast. We both know what it’s like to hear that a loved one has liver cancer. We won’t talk about that either. When I say fell in love, I mean the way you love tangerines. Thanks to you, sounds no longer sting. Only one of us can take out the garbage without going viral, but we’re both poets, gasping for words. My brother didn’t make it. This feels like that time I won a Make a Wish contest. My prize was cutting a college boy’s hair on stage, hands shaking. Knowing he was paid to hold still. Don’t worry. I like your hair and I hate touch. Unless. Can we find enough words in both languages for what we’ve lost? Everyone walking by the café window is watching us bury our faces in white fur. Unless you wanted to take my hand. We’re both still here. When I say fell in love, I mean the way you’d choose the same flavour over and over.
Author's Note:
Sometimes what my soul needs most is a treasure hunt. When I mudlark along the Red River near the former CPR landfill and Blackwoods brewery sites, my mind quiets. All I see is the glitter at my feet: stained-glass window scrap, teacup handles, hundred-year-old bottles protruding from mud. I ask the river for a comforting message, and often, she delivers: the day after I was diagnosed with hearing loss: a doll’s ear. When I faced uncertainty: a rusty key. Or the broken tile that said, “AND,” reminding me I can be two things at once: sad and grateful, messy and worthy, vulnerable and strong. angelineschellenberg.wordpress.com/2026/08/27/mudlarking/
Angeline Schellenberg is the author of the Manitoba Book Award-winning Tell Them It Was Mozart, the KOBZAR-nominated Fields of Light and Stone, Mondegreen Riffs, and the forthcoming Fresh from the Saltwater Taffy Booth. A spiritual director, photographer, mudlark, and BTS fan, Angeline hosts the Speaking Crow poetry open-mic in Winnipeg.
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