Maria Yeonhee Ji
Cumulonimbus
His father flies planes for a living. He was taught all there is to know of bad weather: how to
navigate turbulence; how to deal with unexpected falls from great heights; and how, when the
situation commands, a single cloud can seize the sky with a specialty brew of thunder.
I stand by the window, head turned towards the moon as though it is a place where fears can
be buried. There was a time when I could recite the names of all its seas, but that was before
all of this. The syllables seem so close, but then they float away at the very last second.
Perhaps this feeling I’ve carried these last few months has changed me in a way that makes
me hard to recognise?
He tells me I look no different. He pulls me to the sofa and cradles me in his arms, holds his
hand to my cheek. He talks to me of meteorology while he strokes my hair. He tells me we
are in a place where they build bridges out of milk teeth. I must cross these bridges with him
and set them on fire. Only then can we move forward in safety. He tells me in our situation
there are some things one must do, even if it kills you. Even if it makes you harden to a shine.
Amplitude
If eyes are the windows to the soul, then ears surely facilitate the formation of it. Through the
cochlea swirl: the hum of human compassion and suffering; compositions of the great
musicians; and the call of your name. What to make, then, of the troubled painter who
severed his own ear, wrapped it in newspaper, and offered it to a woman with no complete
appellation in public record?
***
I waited to get my ears pierced until I was twenty-two years old. Having studied anatomy by
dissecting cadavers from the age of nineteen, there was some part of me that assigned
immense value to the intact human body. To pierce an earlobe – however small and
inconsequential a part of the body it may be – felt like a breach of that wholeness. When I did
finally get it done, I wanted it to be a considered act; I wanted to be sure of what exactly I was
paying for in that small piercing and tattoo studio in New Market, a fifteen-minute walk from
the university campus.
***
The doctor removed the dressing to check the wound. He had learned this skill over many
years, this ability to look at an injury and see the future, like an old woman clasping a cup,
peering at a configuration of tea leaves. From the stained, chapped lips of the laceration
poured out purulent waters in which he would search, diligently, for the beginnings of a
changing tide.
***
The first boy I ever loved discovered that gently biting my ear would cause goosebumps to
appear all over my body on the ipsilateral side. He would delightedly observe the hairs on my
arm and leg saluting some phantom captain. The hairs did this obediently, without fail, each
time my ear was stimulated by touch or breath. I always wondered how this was possible,
though my curiosity didn’t subtend the daring to ask a lecturer about the particulars of this
phenomenon. There isn’t a lot of research on this matter – piloerection is largely understood
as our sympathetic nervous system’s reaction to cold temperatures. But it is also known to
occur in response to the sublime.
Maria Yeonhee Ji is an Auckland-based writer, illustrator, and medical student. Her poetry and prose have appeared in various publications including New Zealand Poetry Society anthologies, Potroast, Signals, and Tearaway.