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2023 Academy of American Poets Prize

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Funeral

by Phi Chu

 

I’m sorry. Ông nội was already gone from our lives a decade ago after his stroke. Today my cousins and I are props for memory. We are robed in death’s white. We listen to prayers and bow to the floor when the monk rings his bell. We march with bannermen who lead us to the plot of earth. It’s not exactly a duty. It’s the first time we see our parents wail together. We know there is no ocean for them at this moment. We can only stand aside to let their grief contort itself through their bodies. It’s not ours. Today when I say community, I mean those who had to begin their life again. They watch their homeland fade from our eyes. I watch everyone from behind the bouquet I’ll soon toss into the earth, the unnamed dirt, endless for all I could ever carry. I’m sorry— the pigeons are beating their wings in my head again. Ông nội brought the pair to me in a box one day as a surprise then built a shelter on the patio for them the next. I nurtured them at distance because their claws and beaks unnerved my small hands. Before I could muster courage to speak to them gently, a stray cat killed one, and the other fled. —Ông nội, I’m afraid I won’t recognize this love before it’s gone.

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