Past the congested interstate, past the long lines outside the Dorothy Day Center, past the cheering bleachers, the steam rising from the coach’s face, the fathers straining in prayer,
past the rusting letters on the marquee, the dim lights along Main, the couples who will fuck during the movie & the couples who won’t, past the frozen orchard, past the defaced statue of a saint, a dog
chews thin the leather cord around his neck. The opposite of hunger is not satisfaction, it is birth. It is what makes a man chisel a face into stone. It is what drives the body to lie in the fresh snow. It is what quiets the world
when she pulls you in close. It is the winning pass, the crowd too busy counting down to notice. The world puts its mouth on you & you don’t say a thing. The world digs a hole in your yard
& it’s up to you to fill it, up to you to find something useful to do with your sadness. Strange, the yellow beetle, dried between the pages of the dictionary, staining the page
with its flattened body — its outline, a dirty halo circling the word pleased — please, you’ve circled the same two blocks in search of a place to park, circled the yard howling a name that won’t respond,
but you still think you know enough to call that enough? The boat smacks against the dock it’s tied to. Your mother fixes your father’s tie before closing the casket.
Everyone you loved refused to die in this town before they died in this town. The woman beside you on the plane wants to know where you’re going.
hieu minh nguyen this way to the sugar (via@luthienne) \ via@zuvson\ natalie diaz postcolonial love poem: “postcolonial love poem” (via@beingharsh) \ salman toor the star (2019) \ elena ferrante the story of a new name \ adonis selected poems (tr. khaled mattawa)
[image: A brightly-colored illustration of the five 2018 Fellos around a table, all looking at the viewer or out of the frame. They appear to be very high up, as blue skies and clouds can be seen through large windows behind them. There are several flowers and green plants in the scene, as well as books, bottles, and a candelabra. They appear to be in a modern apartment.]
Hieu Minh Nguyen, from This Way to the Sugar: Poems; “Teacher’s Pet”
[Text ID: I could be a liar. I could be remembering / the wrong details. Details. Details: her office is still / a lost thing. Darkness holding the ember hostage. / There is nothing in this story that’s not a dagger.]
& because you aren’t here (won’t ever, again, be here) to cover my mouth, I’ll confess, out loud, my love, so maybe perhaps, you will hear me & join me, here where the sun is sweet against the water & because I love you, I will gut this distance with nostalgia, because grief can taste of sugar if you run your tongue along the right edge,
—Hieu Minh Nguyen, from “Still, Somehow,” published in The Margins
