[36. Violence: Patri-confessional]
This poem has been excerpted from Nam Le’s new book, 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem.
I buried my father in the great light,
the corroded pink, burning the eye to see,
launched him into dream commons, particularity,
a new matter of time, him & his apologies.
I buried our father under the great terebinth where
we ploughed up the moss shine one last time &
mother’s face was made newly easy, sloughed
of all last trace of girlhood.
And the earth reseeds.