My Mother Sizes Me
You come to me shaking, cradling tissue
in your palm so carefully that I didn’t recognize
your softness, open to me for once. Do you like it?
you asked before unwrapping. I don’t know
where it came from. I knew the minute I saw it
slim and pale green, impossibly small. A perfect circle
that would never fit on me again. Back then,
I bruised myself to take it off
would have smashed it if I loved it less.
That summer I was angry with you over
everything, not knowing where to put it
or the bracelet, except away in your makeup drawer
with Clinique and Estee Lauder, each bag open
and overfull with palettes and powders,
promises to highlight, enhance, define. I knew
you’d never find it, knew you never wore makeup
after you left the mall; no one ever looked as good
in their own lighting. I didn’t understand what it meant
that we could only bond over beauty counters,
bear each other more easily with our lips smacking
in front of mirrors to shades of Black Honey
and Bruised Plum. Now you can only stare and wait
wanting me to try again, so sure the bangle still fits
but it sticks at my knuckles, my body stubborn
to the past, your will. You grab soap in one hand,
my wrist in the other, and my laughter is
the only lubricant I have for this failure.
I could hide it again, slip the jade under
concealer and compacts, the free gifts
we spent weekends chasing and forgot.
I wonder if I could face you, and still we’d end up here:
heads bent over the sink, letting you mold
and make me, breaking myself to make it fit.
Early Mornings at the Kitchen Table With My Father
Your hands tented like prayer, you said
you hated to see me drive into work so early
come home so late. You hoped differently for me
but it’s too late for hopes and too early
to answer. I wondered if you thought I came by it
naturally, or if you were remembering how you left
always before true morning, the sun, and breakfast
with your family to make something of a day
each day turning into a lifetime of goodbyes
your wiry hours winding down to so little.
This was what it’s like to see you go:
you drove away in trucks that housed
what you loved—your instruments, massive
blueprints, and those enormous spools of cable.
You wound up on the same couch each night
half-asleep, too tired to move but with a half-smile
asked us what we’d learned today, before
you set off into deep sleep, dreaming
of what you’d build tomorrow. At night, your screams
frightened me into your room, to stand guard
at the foot of the bed, not to wake you
but to witness your secrets, what you never
told us about the war or day or how you felt.
I learned to keep silence from those nights next to you.
Your hands folded across your chest,
the ones that might have waved goodbye,
but never woke us up in time, are not the hands
that held mine today. They begged for more time
such a little thing to ask in such a tight grasp
but what can you do with psoriasis-eaten hands
that embarrass you. You know that they
embarrass me too. The hands that used to build
now gnarled at the knuckles so we can’t let go
even if we wanted to, and you can’t pry me loose.
Thu Anh Nguyen is a Vietnamese American poet whose poetry has been featured in the Southern Humanities Review, The Crab Orchard Review, Cider Press Review, Curator Magazine, Zoetic Press’ Heathentide Orphans, The BIPOC Issue of Wingless Dreamer, NPR’s “Social Distance” poem for the community, The Salt River Review, and 3Elements. Her poem “Symbols Are Not Excuses” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and the Best of the Net by the Southern Humanities Review. The author’s poems were also named as a semi-finalist for the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize for the Southern Humanities Review. She was honored with a writing residency with The Inner Loop Poetry Series in Washington, D.C. Her most recent book review and personal essay was published by Soapberry Review.
Featured image: Paul Sableman, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
