Friday Night(s)

I don't want to let the drink talk for me. I ask it where it was made. It answers Europe, perhaps Germany, perhaps Russia, perhaps here wherever here is, it answers through my reading of its name and labels of the bottle. I twist its cap. I smell the scent of nail polish. I imagine my multiple Vietnamese barbers from multiple beauty salons. I imagine them cutting my hair, calculating which angle to snip at, wondering if I wanted it that way. I smell that scent, yet I still consume it, a piece of myself, my make-up. My mother appears out of that imagery evoked by my scent. My mother appears when I hear you speak of whatever issues you have being a woman.

Tears drip down an unfamiliar face. I've never seen this side of me before. Thank you for witnessing it so I can witness it for myself. Thank you.

Home She Said To Me

Mẹ,
cho con đời sống.
Mother,
you give me life.
You,
gave me life.

Mẹ,
How
can I put my hands on
you.

Mẹ,
When
you,
give life.
When
you,
make my home, make me home, make me.

Em,
your brown-nâu eyes,
mirror
my own,
mirror,
Mẹ.

Mẹ,
your tối-đen, black hair
imbued
by
the aroma
of
the
Perfume River.. is

The essence of my adolescence.
The essence of my manhood.

My running reflection.

Mẹ,
the wrinkles, the cracks, the marks on
your
hands
mirror
the beauty
I mirror the world to you, Em.

Viet-Nam-Mẹ-------------------
America-Em--------------------

I am you. I am you both. Viet Nam. America. My Em, my lover. My mother, my creator.