Ｈｏｔｅｌ Ｐｅｃｕｌｉａｒ Ｉ
It was 12:50 in Boston the Thursday
after they’d released the fireworks
too early, and we went to Hongkong
Eatery and eagerly forking into the
Crispy Fried Whole Exploded Fish
you said no, then yes when I asked
have you ever grilled an armadillo, will you
come see me in Hanoi, because
there
in Hanoi I had a house, O but you could call
and I’d hurry over. Have you eaten
Husband And Wife Lung Pieces,
the hail began to hit us on the head
hard so we took an umbrella from
MUJI and from UNIQLO we took
XL Bangladeshi WindProof Parkas
with pockets big enough to fit Kitchen
by Banana Yoshimoto, Tomoe River
Paper Hobonichi Techos, Tomitaro
Makino, Krishna Monsoon Sky
Waterproof Rainwater Ink,
things
we felt entitled to, inalienably my daddy
once had me swallow Live Monkey
Brains, and my neighbor beat the shit
out of me when he caught me pissing
on his kitchen towels and on my goose eggs
bear bile later lay, smelling like
shit, my neighbor really beat the BRAINS
out of me! Then on
to CHUG CHA:
two Matcha Lattes with Vegan
Pork Pearls, the sun disorienting,
I have eaten Triple Fertilized
Siamese Twin Duck Eggs, have you
ever pulled a preemie from the splayed
placenta of a pregnant pig en papillote, who
do you think the placenta belonged to
anyway, you said perhaps Sharon
Olds would know, she wrote about
it.
Ｄｏｇｇｅｒｅｌ
Down Beacon Street, I think I saw a cur,
a cross-eyed cur I fed a sausage to, alas,
when I was seventeen, ten years ago—
I cut his nails; I called him once a year,
and on the seventh year he finally ran away—
All the dogs I trained, they always went astray:
an Indochinese dingo gone amok:
come dawn, he used to give my hand a lick;
I held him, cooed, “I cherish you a lot,”
my fingers crossed. I tied him by a tree,
termites engulfing him; I’d hoped I’d feel a shock—
and saw Father John have his parking approved
on Commonwealth Avenue—I think I heard a cry
when I beat a baby poodle to a pulp.
I chased him off; I think he’s found a taste
for pain, for when I saw him again
on Commonwealth Av’nue
he flaunted flea bites, lice, infections, a proud
expression on his face—another bitch awry.
I chained a mongrel to my father’s motorcycle: I felt so, so alive.
Losing is for a dog, like smoking for a child.
In Prudential, economists, consultants play Rockabye.
But dogs they were, and I will not apologize
To kiss a berger outside Pho Pasteur! tongueless, lipful, a schmack!—
Good-bye Boston. Good-bye good-bye. I’m never coming back.
Ｔｒｉｐ
Taxi! to Valerie—
our victual rendezvous!
and then we vroom fast
past the homely hobos of Spring Street at
whom I wave through the window of
the taxi flying toward Valerie! a toss
when we pass Bank of America Plaza char-
coaling a pigeon’s penciled beat across
the already wrinkled Wacom welkin—o Señor
custodian, behind Howey Building, breathes
a cigarette; a juggler in the empty
Cheetah parking lot and a toddler barking
WOOHOO—
I hear my driver say that nowadays
they even lace the pills that we—consume
like it’s this whole—gestalt
whatchumacallit—que lindo
que lindo
and then we
stop
beside an orchard
of bent-over
blanket people and I
alight
to go up
to Valerie and as
my stomach dissolves
a pinworm
pill I take
to thinking if
it is true.
Lê Đức Trọng (b. Vietnam) lives in Atlanta, GA, where he traps Lithium atoms for his PhD in Physics at Georgia Tech. His poetry has been published by Verses from the Underground, Sextet Lit, Sardine Can Collective, and others.
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