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The following is a poem by Matthew Zapruder set to music by composer Missy Mazzoli. See a conversation between the two here.

KOREA
by Matthew Zapruder

It is very early
the apartment is cold

Sarah is still asleep
I ask myself

if I am not
a garbage man

why am I
awake in the world

I guess to the side
of the large

rattling green
truck sized worry

gathering all these
beautiful theories

and feelings
to cling

when the sky
gets lighter

I will try
in my desk chair

to sort them
when I first

turned on the light
I saw a fruit fly

like a tiny
weightless black

satellite orbiting
nothing above the sink

so like I read
in some magazine

I filled two plastic
containers with

a little vinegar
and poked holes

in saran wrap
to catch it before

it finds another
and breeds

like last summer
when for weeks

laughing and angry
we chased them

around the apartment
eager to amputate

what was if one
can call it that

their dream to live
with their ten

thousand children
in a mango

or bagel that rolled
behind the refrigerator

for hours I sit
in the kitchen

and watch the traps
on the radio I hear

a solemn voice
repeat war games

in the yellow sea
on a map with my finger

I trace the kingdom
of Korea

it looks like a blue
friendly seahorse

ready for gentle
locomotion

hello lord
sorry I woke you

because my plans
are important to me

and I need things
no one can buy

and don’t even know
what they are

I know I belong
in this new dark age