Legacy
&
water gwisin interview questions
MARIA PICONE
Legacy
Father did not know how to be a ship. It was Mother’s heart that was vessel, always looking at how to propel itself forward. Through the poverty, through the shame, through the pain of Korea nation birthing itself, she had always found a way. Marooned on the backside of the moon without oxygen, fuel, or social media, Father had become a different kind of ghost—not a ghost man but a real Korean gwisin.
Because Father couldn’t escape gravity, I asked him what he wanted to do. He told me he played poker with the moon hares and tried to find the craters that tasted the most like cheese. I accused him of mixing metaphors and he just smiled. I tried to siphon him into my ship by reversing the expulsion of air as though I were vacuuming him up like a bug. It didn’t take.
All the while, he clapped and laughed with praise at my resourcefulness. You are like the blind man’s daughter from the story he said. I had never heard that story so all I could imagine was the three blind mice. It was too easy to see a father mouse, a mother mouse, and a daughter mouse in the story. Cut off tails. It was getting late in the day, and I knew Mother was expecting me. I couldn’t leave him.
What if I teach you how to fly? I asked. Don’t you want to go back to Earth?
He slid open the hatch of his chest cavity—there, shining and white, sat a moon rock, weighting him, unbalancing his flight. Standing up straight, holding aloft my laborious ship’s fins, I tried to convey how I had become proud of my hybrid vessel. He shook his head, unwilling to try.
I got comfortable. I played the recorder I had bought in Seoul and showed him the state of my bank book. Good he said as he passed an arm through my shoulder. I didn’t know what else to do so I spooned the three-minute jjajang mix into the bowl and heated it with the flare from my rocket so that its smell permeated the moon like a meatball slathered in marinara sauce. Good he said as he twitched insubstantial nostrils. I would have laughed, but legacy is not comedy.
I’d missed the transit to Korea. I’d have to slingshot myself in a figure eight around the Earth to get back. I should go, I said finally, frowning at my failure. The moon rock winked like it was mocking me. I promised to visit, and he asked me to bring him a hot bowl of hobakjuk. I couldn’t imagine how I could transport it, but I agreed, of course. He had gone looking for me and ended up here. I would give him anything he wanted.
As I set up a launch pad, he passed his whole body through mine and stood there, inside and around and between and enveloping my outline. Even if Father wasn’t a ship, he was still part of me. Did you find your mother he asked. I told him yes. He jumped up and down and even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I could almost feel the weight of the emotions in our shared hearts. Tell her I love her, he said.
I’m on my way back to her now, I said.
He stepped outside of me—suddenly we were two distinct beings again. Don’t.
What? I had already plotted my course.
Father waved his arms like a tourist taking a photo. She told me how she gave you away, he said. You found her and you found me. Now you go, he said, jerking his thumb out away from the sun. You go find yourself.
I shook my head again. I can’t, I said, not until I know you two are secure.
Was it him who stared so, or the moon rock blinking me down? Do you not think I’m serious, I finally said, given that I now had to recalculate my angle of approach.
He showed me his palms. I do, he said. Then I’m not going to tie you here. Teach me how to come back with you.
Hard work, floating among barren craters, shivering on the dark side and sweating on the sun side as the impenetrable Earth rose into our field of vision. I lost count of how many cycles passed, how many times I had to refuel myself and skip back down to the yielding surface of the moon. Father’s favorite recorder song was “Brave” by J. Lo. I was getting better too, I thought, as I practiced until music became one of my systems. And my imperfection encouraged him.
I watched Father start to roar and kick and agitate the small patient rocks on the surface of the moon. Growing a heart with propulsion, he said, and I could feel him winking at me.
A ghost could be like a ship, I learned. A ghost needs no fuel beyond the memory of what had been.
At last the moon stone thunked from his heart and shattered, becoming space dust. He lifted off. His engine soul shrieked into the void.
Father was fast when he had resolve. I charted our path back home, catching up to him is a sweaty and disheveled mess. Sorry, he said as I pulled alongside him. I didn’t know if I could escape until I did. I smiled.
The bright band of the Earth came quickly; Father’s heart sputtered and his vessel slowed.
Speed up! I called. You will crash!
I can’t, I can’t! he called, panicking, I reached out and touched solid mass. I wrapped my arms around him, a tandem hug, and gave him the lift to part the veil around our planet.
We fell to Earth. We picked up Mother, moved to the countryside and became the family we had always been: two ship women and one gwisin ship man.
Legacy
Father did not know how to be a ship. It was Mother’s heart that was vessel, always looking at how to propel itself forward. Through the poverty, through the shame, through the pain of Korea nation birthing itself, she had always found a way. Marooned on the backside of the moon without oxygen, fuel, or social media, Father had become a different kind of ghost—not a ghost man but a real Korean gwisin.
Because Father couldn’t escape gravity, I asked him what he wanted to do. He told me he played poker with the moon hares and tried to find the craters that tasted the most like cheese. I accused him of mixing metaphors and he just smiled. I tried to siphon him into my ship by reversing the expulsion of air as though I were vacuuming him up like a bug. It didn’t take.
All the while, he clapped and laughed with praise at my resourcefulness. You are like the blind man’s daughter from the story he said. I had never heard that story so all I could imagine was the three blind mice. It was too easy to see a father mouse, a mother mouse, and a daughter mouse in the story. Cut off tails. It was getting late in the day, and I knew Mother was expecting me. I couldn’t leave him.
What if I teach you how to fly? I asked. Don’t you want to go back to Earth?
He slid open the hatch of his chest cavity—there, shining and white, sat a moon rock, weighting him, unbalancing his flight. Standing up straight, holding aloft my laborious ship’s fins, I tried to convey how I had become proud of my hybrid vessel. He shook his head, unwilling to try.
I got comfortable. I played the recorder I had bought in Seoul and showed him the state of my bank book. Good he said as he passed an arm through my shoulder. I didn’t know what else to do so I spooned the three-minute jjajang mix into the bowl and heated it with the flare from my rocket so that its smell permeated the moon like a meatball slathered in marinara sauce. Good he said as he twitched insubstantial nostrils. I would have laughed, but legacy is not comedy.
I’d missed the transit to Korea. I’d have to slingshot myself in a figure eight around the Earth to get back. I should go, I said finally, frowning at my failure. The moon rock winked like it was mocking me. I promised to visit, and he asked me to bring him a hot bowl of hobakjuk. I couldn’t imagine how I could transport it, but I agreed, of course. He had gone looking for me and ended up here. I would give him anything he wanted.
As I set up a launch pad, he passed his whole body through mine and stood there, inside and around and between and enveloping my outline. Even if Father wasn’t a ship, he was still part of me. Did you find your mother he asked. I told him yes. He jumped up and down and even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I could almost feel the weight of the emotions in our shared hearts. Tell her I love her, he said.
I’m on my way back to her now, I said.
He stepped outside of me—suddenly we were two distinct beings again. Don’t.
What? I had already plotted my course.
Father waved his arms like a tourist taking a photo. She told me how she gave you away, he said. You found her and you found me. Now you go, he said, jerking his thumb out away from the sun. You go find yourself.
I shook my head again. I can’t, I said, not until I know you two are secure.
Was it him who stared so, or the moon rock blinking me down? Do you not think I’m serious, I finally said, given that I now had to recalculate my angle of approach.
He showed me his palms. I do, he said. Then I’m not going to tie you here. Teach me how to come back with you.
Hard work, floating among barren craters, shivering on the dark side and sweating on the sun side as the impenetrable Earth rose into our field of vision. I lost count of how many cycles passed, how many times I had to refuel myself and skip back down to the yielding surface of the moon. Father’s favorite recorder song was “Brave” by J. Lo. I was getting better too, I thought, as I practiced until music became one of my systems. And my imperfection encouraged him.
I watched Father start to roar and kick and agitate the small patient rocks on the surface of the moon. Growing a heart with propulsion, he said, and I could feel him winking at me.
A ghost could be like a ship, I learned. A ghost needs no fuel beyond the memory of what had been.
At last the moon stone thunked from his heart and shattered, becoming space dust. He lifted off. His engine soul shrieked into the void.
Father was fast when he had resolve. I charted our path back home, catching up to him is a sweaty and disheveled mess. Sorry, he said as I pulled alongside him. I didn’t know if I could escape until I did. I smiled.
The bright band of the Earth came quickly; Father’s heart sputtered and his vessel slowed.
Speed up! I called. You will crash!
I can’t, I can’t! he called, panicking, I reached out and touched solid mass. I wrapped my arms around him, a tandem hug, and gave him the lift to part the veil around our planet.
We fell to Earth. We picked up Mother, moved to the countryside and became the family we had always been: two ship women and one gwisin ship man.
Water Gwisin Interview Questions
How did you know the instant you changed from fire/bone/blood to water/coral/miyeok?
Can you paint a diaspora by inking in the holes and boxes of your Hangeul name?
If a stone strikes your image, will it soften and blur
or will it be printed in the papers?
Do you remember the name of the greed that drowned you?
Does it have a specific touch point known to man, e.g., War Day, Sewol Ferry,
or have you, like most maidens misting away, lost the bookmark?
Is revenge, to you, the hot spike of overwarming seas
or the cold determination of sharks rippling by?
Have you known the touch of a man who was not greedy?
Have you known and cared for the touch of a man, or woman?
Did you learn to speak your native tongue or did the colonizers take that from you?
How many have you revealed yourself to in the last moment of their lives?
How many did you save?
Is the hunger of ocean cold, or hot?
How did you know the instant you changed from fire/bone/blood to water/coral/miyeok?
Can you paint a diaspora by inking in the holes and boxes of your Hangeul name?
If a stone strikes your image, will it soften and blur
or will it be printed in the papers?
Do you remember the name of the greed that drowned you?
Does it have a specific touch point known to man, e.g., War Day, Sewol Ferry,
or have you, like most maidens misting away, lost the bookmark?
Is revenge, to you, the hot spike of overwarming seas
or the cold determination of sharks rippling by?
Have you known the touch of a man who was not greedy?
Have you known and cared for the touch of a man, or woman?
Did you learn to speak your native tongue or did the colonizers take that from you?
How many have you revealed yourself to in the last moment of their lives?
How many did you save?
Is the hunger of ocean cold, or hot?
|
MARIA S. PICONE (mariaspicone.com/Twitter @mspicone) is a queer Korean American adoptee. Her debut chapbook, Adoptee Song, will be released in spring 2023. She won the 2020 Cream City Review Summer Poetry Prize and grants from Kenyon Review, Hambidge, The Juniper Institute, and elsewhere. She is Chestnut Review’s managing editor.
/// I love the definition of Kaleidoscoped given on the "about" page and I might add that it seems to me like a shifting, multivocal and diverse perspective. /// The theme of GHOSTS & GOSSIP, especially as it relates to the intersectionality and diversity of the KALEIDOSCOPED mission, inspired me to send work that searches for identity and reclamation via revisitation of the past. My writing echoes through the lens of an interlocutor in search of a clearer voice on the truth; what if ghosts are signposts of personal and political history? What if ghosts are just as helpful and benevolent as they are deemed malicious? Giving the ghosts of bygone Koreas and my own adoptee identity agency and weight by allowing them to speak their stories denotes connection, branching, and healing in a way that only the random, polyvocal, and ephemeral can produce. |