thương | love wounds
I tell you I do not wish to translate my grief,
and you press your fingers at the worry
that forms between my brows. What do you know
of the silence between translations?
THƯƠNG – to love. to pity. to grieve.
THƯƠNG – to wound. to injure. to hurt.
Lesson 1:
Every utterance is deficient in that it says less than it wishes.
“Thương mới nói”
[ ] only say
(I) only say (it because I) love (you).
(I) only say (it because I) pity (you).
(I) only say (it because I) grieve (you).
(I) only say (it because I) hurt (you).
where you and I and conjunctive reason are pronominal
ghosts, haunting parentheticals
their existence mere echoes in syntactic paradigm.
“Có bị thương không?”
Q NEG.PASS [ ] Q
Have you been hurt?
Lesson 2: Every utterance is exuberant in that it says more than it plans.
“Thương ơi”
[ ] PRT
Oh lover
piteous grieving lover,
does it hurt when I call for you?
To love you is to hurt you.
To hurt me is to love me.
Lesson 3:
The silence between translations is the absence of memory.
NHỚ – to miss. to long for. to be homesick for.
NHỚ – to remember. to recall. to keep in mind.
“Khi cô đơn, em nhớ đến ai?”
when lonely 3sg [ ] to who
When you are lonely, who do you miss?
When you are lonely, who do you remember?
bóng | lit shadows
Dictionary entry for bóng
1. bóng – as in bóng nắng, bóng trăng, bóng sao; sun, moon, and starlight
as in sáng bóng; shining, brilliant – gone.
2. bóng – as in bóng đêm; night shadows
as in bóng tối; darkness
as in soi bóng trong gương; shadows reflected in a mirror
3. bóng – as in bong bóng; balloon
as in thả bóng trên trời; a balloon released into the sky
dodging power lines and errant branches
floating, weightless – gone.
4. bóng – as in bể bóng; to pop a balloon
to be outed
as in nghĩa bóng; figurative, or
shadow meaning
N.B. antonym: nghĩa đen;
as in literal, or
black meaning –
meaning imbued with the semantic certainty of darkness
as in nói bóng; speaking figuratively, or
speaking shadows
as in cái thằng đó bóng mà; that one’s queer –
that one’s a fag.
5. bóng – as in I am 14
and sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor
the blue glow of late night TV, volume turned way way down
it’s RuPaul’s Drag Race and The L Word
(it’s just good TV)
my silhouette burning, bursting, wanting release
how queer it is,
to see your shadow on a moonless, starless night,
celestial body
shining, brilliant –
gone.
Minh Nguyễn is a queer Vietnamese American poet and linguist based in Seattle. They hold a Ph.D. in Linguistics, and their research background informs their poetry, which explores queerness, diaspora, translation, and memory. Their scholarly writing on language and identity has appeared in academic journals, alongside creative work in Vǎnguard and Moss. Learn more about their work at minhnguyenphd.com.