in vietnamese, the word for origin is "source of the trunk"
by Kimberly Nguyen

 
                                                                           because my father says i came to him in a fever dream
                                                             that homesick, he closed his eyes                       and tasted eden
                                              his tongue split                                                       open
                                                                                   and from the folds                               i emerged
 
in another version of the story              i am a reincarnation         of an unfulfilled life                  a raindrop that
never reached                 the bottom of the mountain        before the earth swallowed it              in an old myth
i am delivered                 by either the waves or the shore                                depending on the translation.
 
but in the true version of the story, i was salt.
                                        i would know.                        i was there.                                i remember.
 
i calcified into bone                                            and became the rib of a fish                               that my father caught
and brought it to my mother                           that my mother cooked                                       and set out for dinner
midway through the meal                                i caught in her throat                                           before i was bone
before i was salt                                                  i was ion                                                                   waiting to get caught
somewhere                                                           aren’t we all waiting                                             to get caught
somewhere                                                           my mother coughed and coughed                     a swallowed bone
passes from this iteration                                 to the next                                                               in one final hack she
expelled me                                                          pulled me out                                                          put me down.

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Kimberly Nguyễn is a Vietnamese-American poet originally from Omaha, Nebraska but currently living in New York City. She is a recent graduate of Vassar College where she was a recipient of a Beatrice Daw Brown Prize for Poetry. Her work can be found in diaCRITICS, Meniscus Literary Journal, Parenthese Journal, perhappened mag, Hobart, and others. Her full list of publications can be found on her website at www.kimberlynguyenwrites.com.