15 Jan: "DeToNation" by Ocean Vuong

There’s a joke that ends with — huh?
It’s the bomb saying here is your father.

Now here is your father inside
your lungs. Look how lighter

the earth is — afterward.
To even write the word father

is to carve a portion of the day
out of a bomb-bright page.

There’s enough light to drown in
but never enough to enter the bones

& stay. Don’t stay here, he said, my boy
broken by the names of flowers. Don’t cry

anymore. So I ran into the night.
The night: my shadow growing

toward my father.

1 comment:

  1. A son's world explodes when he finds out everything he wanted and hoped about his dad was wrong. The Earth is lighter because the boy is heavier from the news.

    The growing shadow is a very cool image. A son running towards a new sun/day/life.

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