This poem is a response to Ocean Vuong's Telemachus
& there my father stayed out of reach for a decade,
unlike Little Dog, I didn't have the chance
to sink deeper with him,
for I am all ready to drown and be still:
the way century-past forgotten rocks
dwell with the forthcoming waves.
for whatever water he may be in rafting alone
I might not be able to come aboard
nothing but paper receipts every month;
it's the closest, solely, I was ever to be with him.
and I have no other face to wear
even of my mother's I can't and will not
for there is but antipodal faces
ready not to be attached
for only maternal [could be paternal]
dolorous things happen.
I've become a Kami, pa,
folded, crafted, ready to float,
in hopes of being harbored near him,
near where the after-wet storm could be released
not forcefully but gracefully as sliding honeysuckle-
& I am ready to be tugged
Out of the waters, to be tended.