Sestina
I knew Bố Mẹ before I knew Vietnamese.
But when Vietnamese didn’t sound like English,
I ran away to the sexy sounds of a Spanish sueño –
living la vida loca in Los Angeles with a Chicano;
loving his mixed identity, I showed him my tongue,
telling him Thi in Vietnamese means poem.
The way he said izquierda, I heard a poem purr,
compared to the bluntness of “take a left” in Vietnamese.
Bố Mẹ’s speech belonged to a busy marketplace, my tongue
wagged behind, so I sharpened it with Spanglish
slang, spitting “chilliando” to impress my Chicano,
who also loves corridos, such a sueñolindo!
Bố Mẹ asked, “What’s a sueño?”
but I’m too preoccupied, writing this poem,
“Go ask Leo. He’ll tell you. He’s a Chicano,”
I responded. But they wanted it in Vietnamese.
Since neither of us knew, we said it in English,
“Like the American dream,” as we rolled our tongues.
Just kids, they took a chance, holding their tongues,
escaping while mosquitos slept, for their sueño,
bearing me on US soil, speaking broken English,
a language alien to my grandfather’s poems:
Ông Ngoại who wrote in Vietnamese,
but his verse looks chino to a Chicano,
to Leo, whom I love because he’s Chicano.
He speaks Spanish with silver fluidity, yet I’m tongue-
tied talking to Bố Mẹ. Too long I had pushed Vietnamese
away, not knowing because of it, Bố Mẹ achieved their dream.
It’s the boat that pulled them to shore, the poetry
that transposes their story into this sestina in English.
I used to only want to know American English,
but American Spanish sounds so sexy, Chicano.
I know too little Vietnamese to write Bố Mẹ a poem,
but it’s not too late to bend and fold my inherited tongue,
remembering to say, “Please and cảm ơn,” so we may dream
in the same language, laughing together in Vietnamese
to combine their Vietnamese with my dream-
boat Chicano, creating a new name, a new tongue
for a thi I’m writing now in Tiếng Anh.
Glossary of Terms
after “Glossary of Terms” by Franny Choi
| Inheritance | Story | Egg | Perfection | |
| Meaning | 1: to receive something without consent 2: what is owed when one never asked to be born | singular: a rumor, a lie plural: world building, rules making | 1: unfertilized for eating 2: fertilized to bear sentient being | a circle; softness; the beginning; untouched |
| See also | generational x (usually trauma or wealth); ancestral; a silent destruction | translations; afterlives; herstory | a woman’s worth | |
| Antonym | nurture | silence | emptiness | human beings; existence |
| Origin | if both my parents have brown eyes, I also have brown eyes | Tower of Babel | TBD – unclear what came first | the moment before the beginning |
| Not to be mistaken for | impending dread; reductive traits or allergies | Tower of Babbling; history; part of a multiple-floored building | the gibbous moon; inflation; rottenness | multiplying two negatives |
Thi Nguyen is a California native, born in San Jose from Vietnamese refugees, and currently lives in Los Angeles. She received her MFA in creative writing, focusing on poetry, from the University of New Orleans (UNO). Her poems ruminate on issues of identity, family dynamics, and the passage of time, and have appeared in Ghost City Review, Frontier Poetry, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. Outside of writing, Thi enjoys watching reality television and learning magic tricks. You can check out her website at thinguyenpoetry.wordpress.com.
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