METAPHORS
If the belt is a flash of metal and the point of contact thunder,
then it is storming in this moment, a jag of lightning then the peal,
splitting the sky with shape and sound, the child crying in surprise
then looking at the window wondering if the glass would hold.
LIMIT
A line like an arc of a circle.
Red is general, not specific.
Blood is specific, not general.
Hers moves through it.
It moves in an arc to the cycler.
The cycler is plastic, not flesh.
Plastic is general, not specific.
It is not made for her body.
Her body is specific, not general.
It needs kidneys, not cycler.
Kidneys are flesh, not plastic.
They do not hurt her body.
Hurt is specific, not general.
It is the pallor of her skin.
Pallor is general, not specific.
It cannot describe her face.
Biographical Statement
Won Lee is a Korean-American writer based in Chicago. His poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Action, Spectacle, and elsewhere. He received the 2026 Bellevue Literary Review Nonfiction Prize, and his poetry criticism has appeared in Bear Review and TriQuarterly.