Prose Poem for Representation

by Maria Picone

Stephen Hocking

12 / adoptee / musical / Wang Theatre / parents thought “good for her” / a million dreams are in me / what between this Saigon & / Joy Luck Club ’93 / Asian women were / trod down by / circumstances / men / war / cigarette smoke / villains / lifted up by / white men / lifted up / against other Asians / paid by white men / slim / slant-eyed / small-eyed / short / fitting / in their pocket / in their army shirts / not fitting / in their perfect / in their wholesome / in their Christian / white life / but okay / their mistake / she will be / Asian women will be / erased / white men chew up / white men spit out / like watermelon seeds / small black pits / & I ask

what is the key to be / what is the key to America / & I learn / Maria / if you are elegant enough / if you are graceful enough / you will not be a slut / if you kill yourself / they will call it noble / the most noble act / is how you die / for the white man / for the white life / for the child of the better life / the better life your mother gave you / you can give another / child left behind / whose crime was being born / if you get out of the way / & I ask / “was this my mother’s story?” / in this dirty land / she bore you / she was one of these slits here / you are already / luckier / than these whores / & ask I

& learn I / only love / the thought of suicide / only bleed / the reddest lipstick / only have / a bird-flown child / only hold / omnipotent passport / only see / the movie in my mind / that gave a lot of Asians jobs / that taught me trauma / misery / individuality / life / & I ask / how will Asian women become / not commodities / not seeds / not consumed / not discarded / esteemed / loved / like the last night / of the world

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Maria S. Picone — 수영 — is a Korean American adoptee who won Cream City Review’s 2020 Summer Poetry Prize. She has been published in Ice Floe Press, Bending Genres, Whale Road Review, and more, including Best Small Fictions 2021. She has received grants from VONA, Kenyon Review, Lighthouse Writers, GrubStreet, The Watering Hole, SAFTA, The Speakeasy Project, and others. She is the prose editor at Chestnut Review. Her website is mariaspicone.com, Twitter @mspicone.