Time Is a Mother, page 1
Also by Ocean Vuong
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Night Sky with Exit Wounds
PENGUIN PRESS
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Copyright © 2022 by Ocean Vuong
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library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Names: Vuong, Ocean, 1988– author.
Title: Time is a mother / Ocean Vuong.
Description: New York : Penguin Press, 2022.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021031789 (print) | LCCN 2021031790 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593300237 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593300244 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.
Classification: LCC PS3622.U96 T56 2022 (print) | LCC PS3622.U96 (ebook) | DDC 811/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031789
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031790
Cover design by Darren Haggar
Cover photograph by Roman Spataro
Book Design by Lucia Bernard, adapted for ebook by Shayan Saalabi
pid_prh_6.0_139653426_c0_r0
for Peter
&
for my mother, Lê Kim Hồng, called forward
Forgive me, Lord: I’ve died so little!
—César Vallejo
Contents
The Bull
Snow Theory
Dear Peter
Skinny Dipping
Beautiful Short Loser
Old Glory
You Guys
Dear Sara
American Legend
The Last Dinosaur
Rise & Shine
The Last Prom Queen in Antarctica
Dear T
Waterline
Not Even
Amazon History of a Former Nail Salon Worker
Nothing
Scavengers
Künstlerroman
Reasons for Staying
Ars Poetica as the Maker
Toy Boat
The Punctum
Tell Me Something Good
No One Knows the Way to Heaven
Almost Human
Dear Rose
Woodworking at the End of the World
Notes & Acknowledgments
The Bull
He stood alone in the backyard, so dark
the night purpled around him.
I had no choice. I opened the door
& stepped out. Wind
in the branches. He watched me with kerosene
-blue eyes. What do you want? I asked, forgetting I had
no language. He kept breathing,
to stay alive. I was a boy—
which meant I was a murderer
of my childhood. & like all murderers, my god
was stillness. My god, he was still
there. Like something prayed for
by a man with no mouth. The green-blue lamp
swirled in its socket. I didn’t
want him. I didn’t want him to
be beautiful—but needing beauty
to be more than hurt gentle
enough to hold, I
reached for him. I reached—not the bull—
but the depths. Not an answer but
an entrance the shape of
an animal. Like me.
I
Snow Theory
This is the best day ever
I haven’t killed a thing since 2006
The darkness out there, wet as a newborn
I dog-eared the book & immediately
Thought of masturbation
How else do we return to ourselves but to fold
The page so it points to the good part
Another country burning on TV
What we’ll always have is something we lost
In the snow, the dry outline of my mother
Promise me you won’t vanish again, I said
She lay there awhile, thinking it over
One by one the houses turned off their lights
I lay down over her outline, to keep her true
Together we made an angel
It looked like something being destroyed in a blizzard
I haven’t killed a thing since
Dear Peter
they treat me well
here they don’t
make me forget
the world like you
promised but oh well
I’m back inside
my head
where it’s safe
cause I’m not
there the xanax
dissolves & I’m
okay this bed
no longer stranded
at sea the door
coming closer
now & I’m gonna
dock some days
I make it to
the reading room
they have one flew over
the cuckoo’s nest can you
believe it but hey
I think I’m getting better
though I learned
in the courtyard yesterday
I’m still afraid
of butterflies
how they move so much
like a heart
on fire I know it doesn’t
make sense this pill
a bone-shard of will
unwilling me Peter
I feel sorry
for anyone
who has to die despite
the fact I was
fifteen once but
who knows I tell lies
to keep from
falling away
from me you
wouldn’t
believe it a man
in the back of
a walgreens once said
I can make you look
like something true
fuck he said
oh fuck you’re so much
like my little brother
so I let him kiss me
for nothing oh well
childhood
is only a cage
that widens
like this sunlight honest
through the clinic window
where a girl
on methadone
claps alone
at a beige butterfly
knocking its head up
the beige wall Peter
I’m wearing your sea-green socks
to stay close I swear
I’ll learn to swim
when I’m out once
& for all
the body floats
for a reason maybe
we can swim right up
to it grab on
kick us back
to shore Peter I think
I’m doing it right
now finally maybe
I’m winning even
if it just looks like
my fingers are shaking
Skinny Dipping
some boys
have ghosted
from this high
but I wanna go
down on you
anyway to leap
from the bridge
I’ve made
of my wrongs look
they lied to us
no one here
was ever ugly look
if you see
me then
I prayed
correctly I leapt
from the verb
taking off
my best shirt
this rag & rage
a tulip too late
in summer’s teeth
like the blade
in a guillotine I won’t
pick a side
my name a past
tense where I left
my hands
for good oh
it should be
enough to live
& die alone
with music on
your tongue
to jump from
anywhere & make it
home
to be warm & full of
nothing oh
I kept my hope
-blue Vans on
this whole time
to distract you
from my flat ass
did it work oh
my people my people
I thought
the fall would
kill me
but it on
made me real
Beautiful Short Loser
Stand back, I’m a loser on a winning streak.
I got your wedding dress on backward, playing air guitar in these streets.
I taste my mouth the most & what a blessing.
The most normal things about me are my shoulders. You’ve been warned.
Where I’m from it’s only midnight for a second
& the trees look like grandfathers laughing in the rain.
For as long as I can remember I’ve had a preference for mediocre bodies, including this one.
How come the past tense is always longer?
Is the memory of a song the shadow of a sound or is that too much?
Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I imagine Van Gogh singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” into his cut ear & feeling peace.
Green voices in the rain, green rain in the voices.
Oh no. The sadness is intensifying. How rude.
Hey [knocks on my skull], can we go home now?
That one time Jaxson passed out beside a triple stack of jumbo pancakes at Denny’s after top surgery.
I can’t believe I lost my tits, he said a minute before, smiling through tears.
The sadness in him ends in me tonight.
It ends tonight! I shouted to the cop who pulled us over for dreaming.
I’m not high, officer, I just don’t believe in time.
Tomorrow, partly cloudy with a chance.
I’m done talking, sir, I’m saying what I feel.
Inside my head, the war is everywhere.
I’m on the cliff of myself & these aren’t wings, they’re futures.
For as long as I can remember my body was the mayor’s nightmare.
Now I’m a beautiful short loser dancing in the green.
You think I’ll need a gun where we’re going?
Can you believe my uncle worked at the Colt factory for fifteen years only to use a belt at the end?
Talk about discipline. Talk about good lord.
Maybe he saw that a small thing moving through a large thing is more like a bird in a cage than a word in the mouth.
Nobody’s free without breaking open.
I’m not sad, he told me once, laughing, I’m just always here.
See, officer? Magic is real—we all disappear.
Why aren’t you laughing?
No, not beauty—but you & I outliving it. Which is more so.
Somehow, I got me for days. Got this late light
in the yard, leaving blood on the bone
-colored fence. This thrash of spring we drown in to stay awhile & mean it. I mean it when I say I’m mostly
male. That I recall every follicle in the failure the way they’ll remember god after religion: alone, impossible & good.
I know. I know the room you’ve been crying in
is called America.
I know the door is not invented yet.
Finally, after years, I’m now a professional loser.
I’m crushing it in losses. I’m mopping the floor
where Jaxson’s drain bags leaked on his way to bed.
I’m done talking, officer, I’m dancing
in the rain with a wedding dress & it makes sense.
Because my uncle decided to leave this world, intact.
Because taking a piece of my friend away from him
made him more whole.
Because where I’m from the trees look like family
laughing in my head.
Because I am the last of my kind at the beginning of hope.
Because what I did with my one short beautiful life—
was lose it
on a winning streak.
Old Glory
Knock ’em dead, big guy. Go in there
guns blazing, buddy. You crushed
at the show. No, it was a blowout. No,
a massacre. Total overkill. We tore
them a new one. My son’s a beast. A lady
-killer. Straight shooter, he knocked
her up. A bombshell blonde. You’ll blow
them away. Let’s bag the broad. Let’s spit-roast
the faggot. Let’s fuck his brains out.
That girl’s a grenade. It was like Nam
down there. I’d still slam it though. I’d smash it
good. I’m cracking up. It’s hilarious. You truly
murdered. You had me dying over here.
Bro, for real though, I’m dead.
You Guys
brushing my teeth at two
in the morning I say
over my shoulder
you guys you guys I’m serious
what are we going to make
of this mess my voice
muffled with wintergreen foam what
are we going to do now
that it hurts when I look
at those I love like
you two you
who have been through
so much together the thick & skin
of it I’m proud of you both
I say as the foam pinkens
through my lips I’m told
our blood is green but touches the world
with endings my name a place
where I’ve waited for
collisions you guys are
you listening I’m sorry
for being useful only
in language are you still
with me I ask as I peer into the tub
where I placed them gently down
the two white rabbits
I’d found on Harris St the way back
from Emily’s where we watched American Dad!
on her mom’s birthday her
mom who would’ve been 56
this year we ate rocky road
in bowls with blue tulips
I’m too tired she said
to be this happy
& we laughed without
moving our hands perhaps
the rabbits are lovers or sisters sometimes
it’s hard to tell gender
from breathing
earlier I had scooped them
from the pavement
they were crushed but only
kinda one
had a dented half-face
the other’s back flattened like
a courage sock
I cradled them wetly
in my sweatshirt but now
the tub is a red world save for the silent
island of fur flickering
in my fugitive words guys I say
just wait for me alright
just wait a bit longer I swear
I’ll leave this place spotless
when I’m done I say
reaching back to
my wisdom teeth forgetting
it’s been four years
since they’re gone
Dear Sara
What’s the point of writing if you’re just gonna force a bunch of ants to cross a white desert?
—Cousin Sara, age 7
& if you follow these ants
they’ll lead you back to
stone tablets
an older desert
where black bones
once buried are
now words where
I wave to you
at 2:34 am they survived
the blast by becoming
shrapnel embedded in
my brain which
is called learning but maybe
I shouldn’t talk
like this maybe I should start
over Sara I messed up I’m
trying to stay clean but
my hands are monsters
who believe in
magic Sara the throat is also
an inkwell black
oil wrung through
your father’s fingers
after a day beneath
the Buick say
heartbreak & nothing
will shatter say Stonehenge
& watch the elephants sleep
