A small white planet, no bigger than a grain,
rests in the palm of my hand.
With a sip of water, it travels into the body
and disappears.
Dr. Nam Young-joo
Poet Dr. Nam Young-joo is a poet and a Doctor of Pharmacy. She received the New Writer’s Literary Award from Literary Batang, a monthly literary magazine. She graduated from Daegu Catholic University, formerly known as Hyosung Women’s College, and earned both her master’s and doctoral degrees from the College of Pharmacy at Duksung Women’s University. She also completed a program at the Graduate School of Environmental Studies at Seoul National University. She has served as a lecturer at the College of Pharmacy at Duksung Women’s University and at Busan Women’s Junior College. She has also held various positions in professional pharmaceutical organizations, including serving on the Medical Insurance Policy Committee and the Education and Training Committee of the Korean Pharmaceutical Association. In addition, she served as a member of the Steering Committee of Yaksa Gongnon and as president of the Hyoyakhoe Alumni Association of Daegu Catholic University in Seoul. She has also served as a judge for the National Art Exhibition of Korea (Kukjeon). Her published poetry collection is Starlight Under the Microscope.
A Universe in a Single Pill
A small white planet, no bigger than a grain,
rests in the palm of my hand.
With a sip of water, it travels into the body
and disappears.
Dissolving in the stomach,
crossing the intestinal wall,
it boards the red current of the bloodstream.
At the doors of countless cells,
its invisible journey continues
until it finds the one door that is meant for it.
Too much of a medicine becomes a poison
too little may never reach its destination.
On the very narrow border where medicine and poison
are given different names,
the weight of a single pill can determine the measure of life.
The liver transforms what is foreign and sends it on.
The kidneys wash away what remains.
To stay alive, the body repeats the work of taking in and letting go.
At last, where the pill has disappeared,
one person’s day begins to move again.
What we swallowed
may have been more than medicine—
perhaps it was a small universe,
precisely designed to travel toward life.
한 알의 우주
손바닥 위에 놓인
작고 흰 행성 하나
물 한 모금과 함께
몸속의 밤으로 사라진다
위에서 풀리고
장벽을 건너
붉은 혈류에 몸을 싣는다
수많은 세포의 문 앞에서
맞는 문을 만날 때까지
보이지 않는 여행은 계속된다
너무 많으면 독이 되고
너무 적으면 닿지 못한다
약과 독의 이름이 갈리는
아주 좁은 경계에서
한 알의 무게가 생명을 가늠한다
간은 낯선 것을 바꾸어 보내고
신장은 남은 것을 흘려보낸다
몸은 살기 위해
받아들이고 내보내는 일을 되풀이한다
마침내 한 알이 사라진 자리
한 사람의 하루가 다시 움직인다
우리가 삼킨 것은
어쩌면 약이 아니라
생명을 향해 정교하게 설계된
작은 우주였는지도 모른다.
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