I am sitting on the futon wondering when I will earn my parents a house. A poet in Vietnamese is nhà thơ, thus, the body is a house for the poem. I want to contain more than one. Maybe this is too much to ask because my parents never got the chance to learn more than what they already know. It is peak durian season next month. I cannot wait to be home in Los Angeles. Stinky as some call it. What does that say about royal things considered stenchy, while celebrated by some? Perhaps the fruit’s yellow flesh is the taste of celebration, & I want to celebrate my parents’ English. My father can only ask you: How are you? It ends there & he goes outside for a cig behind the apartment complex, my mother might be there tending to the makeshift garden box in the middle of concrete.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, Alina Nguyễn is the proud daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, and the author of the chapbook, Before There Were More Ghosts, from Tomorrow Today. She earned her M.F.A. from the California State University, Long Beach and is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
