Poetry
After Seven Days at a Hotel with T
I slept for seven days at a hotel with T
When I woke up I was a different person
I wanted to make money and I wanted to be a male bird
I wanted T to dive deep into my gullet
but she only swam back and forth like a fish
inside my mouth vault full of saliva
When I lay on T’s body I thought I was paddling
a boat on sand
ELA NAVEVA
the sun was burning and our feet were buried
among worn out symbols
Ah, the sun is only a red stub
dying
Next to this woman I knew about hidden destruction
Like a person drinking endless cheap liquor
or an exhausted ropewalker who cannot sit down
normally I just cut the rope
There are too many things I cannot explain
the world is too small and conflicts are too great
I live alone near Hollywood
a nameless faceless person among the faceless
I fight time and boredom with bouts of lovemaking
After seven days I walked out of the hotel with T
a bird in the sky suddenly grew tired
and dropped on my head like a rotten fruit
T said: it’s nothing, only a case of mistaken identity
we need to go eat
The End.
—Translated from the Vietnamese by Linh Dinh
Contributor
Phan Nhien Hao
Phan Nhien Hao was born in 1967 in Kontum, South Vietnam, and now lives in California. The author of a collection of poems, "Paradise of Paper Bells," his work, translated into English, is featured in the anthology Three Vietnamese Poets (Tinfish, 2001). To order, send $7 to Susan Webster Schultz, 47-728 Hui Kelu Street #9, Kaneohe, HI 96744.
Linh Dinh is the author of a collection of stories, Fake House (Seven Stories Press, 2000), and three chapbooks of poems. He is the editor and translator of Three Vietnamese Poets.
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