I learned to never ask for a memory of you, so it was an occasion when I did receive one at a Korean

restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I want to ask my mother. Your daughter. Mother, I want to ask

about the taste of memory. I will never know the taste of memory. I know the taste of a foreign Korea.

A foreign memory. A foreign daughter. The kimchi jiggae is boiling over the rim. Memory is the heart

boiling over. Into mother. Into me.

After dinner. Back in my bedroom. I needed to press this memory onto a page. Because this is the first

time I feel I can really see you. Because I am watching you as a child, not far from my age. It’s snowing

so thick you cannot see beyond it. Your steps are light. The steps of a child. You are holding your heart.

You are holding a daughter to your heart. A daughter who isn’t my mother. But your first daughter.

Half-blood. American-blood. Empire-blood. In a country where dividing has become our blood. I needed

to press this memory onto a page. Because she has my face. The face of two countries. Because a

memory on a page can make my face whole.

In a memory, you are entering into a sheet of light. Like a sheet bleached with morning. I imagine it’s

been days since you have seen a bed. The snow is so thick you cannot dream beyond it. The weight of

the light makes you sink to your knees. Is it joy or grief that holds you down? The snow becomes heavy

with the feet of men entering. These feet can wake a country. They stand just in the distance outside of

your time. In this memory, you speak. You open with the softness of a child towards a snowing sky. You

open the weight of your nation with your voice. Your nation that was never your nation. Your voice that

was never your voice.