It’s true I’m all talk & a French tuck
but so what. Like the wind, I ride
my own life. Neon light electric
in the wet part of roadkill
on the street where I cut my teeth
on the good sin. I want to
take care of our planet
because I need a beautiful
graveyard. It’s true I’m not a writer
but a faucet underwater. When the flood comes
I’ll raise my hand so they know
who to shoot. The sky flashes. The sea
yearns. I myself
am hell. Everyone’s here. Sometimes
I go to parties just to dangle my feet
out of high windows, among people.
This boy crying in his car
after his shift at McDonald’s
on Easter Sunday. The way
he wipes his eyes with his shirt
as the big trucks blare
off the interstate. My favorite
kind of darkness is the one
inside us, I want to tell him.
&: I like the way your apron
makes it look like you’re ready
for war. I too am ready for war.
Given another chance, I’d pick the life
where I play the piano
in a room with no roof. Broken keys, Bach
sonata like footsteps fast
down the stairs as
my father chases my mother
through New England’s endless
leaves. Maybe I saw a boy
in a black apron crying in a Nissan
the size of a monster’s coffin & knew
I could never be straight. Maybe,
like you, I was one of those people
who loves the world most
when I’m rock-bottom in my fast car
going nowhere.
Copyright © 2022 by Ocean Vu0ng, Time Is a Mother, Cape Poetry, and Penguin Press
