DetoNation

Ocean Vuong

There's a joke that ends with -- huh?

It's the bomb saying here is your father.

Now here is your father inside

your lungs. Look how lighter

the earth is -- afterward.

To even write the word father

is to carve a portion of the day

out of a bomb-bright page.

There's enough light to drown in

but never enough to enter the bones

& stay. Don't stay here, he said, my boy

broken by the names of flowers. Don't cry

anymore. So I ran into the night.

The night: my shadow growing

toward my father.