Back Pains
Traveling to Viet Nam from Los Angeles, I lose a day but gain a future
of 14 hours. Sitting still in my window seat, I catch my reflection or the ghost
of my past self, 14 hours ago—I can’t tell. The blur of dusk is but a side of a coin
where my young face is just an unfolding of Bà Ngoại, or Mẹ, or me.
Someone was surprised to hear I call my mom, Mẹ, and not Má. Mẹ
is a Northern Accent, and I’m hella from Northern California. And just like
my ancestors, I traveled South along the celestial pole, indefinitely extending
the beads on the rosary, as if a thumb print and a Hail Mary will have
me closer to a ma, someone I’ve only heard about but have never met.
But my mẹ isn’t dead yet, and yet she talks to ghosts every time she prays.
Sound is the body making itself known, but what if the voice is only an echo
of an ancestor that doesn’t know she’s dead or a screaming babe
who can’t tell the difference between awake and asleep? Sitting 12
hours in a corner, my back breaks under the weight of the baggage
in the overhead where a light illuminates my bowed head bowled
over in shooting pain. I can’t move, but I am still moving.
On their way to the bathroom, people walk quickly past my row, careful
not to disturb me in meditation as I will my body to unfurl its limbs and lungs,
like the hands of a clock pointing to the space where traces
of arrival and departure are indiscriminate, humming.
Thi is a poet, California native, born from Vietnamese refugees in San Jose, currently living in Los Angeles. She received her MFA in creative writing with a focus on poetry from the University of New Orleans (UNO). Her poems have been recognized with Honorable Mention for the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize and the Academy of American Poets Award in 2024.