meghna

Respond to the given poem from your point of view, focusing on specific words, patterns, images, or any other aspect of the text that appeals to you.

Excerpt from: Ocean Vuong’s “Night Sky with Exit Wounds”.

Why do all my books leave me empty-handed?

In Vietnamese, the word for grenade is “bom,” from the French “pomme,”
meaning “apple.”

Or was it American for “bomb”?

Woke up screaming with no sound. The room filling with a bluish water
called dawn. Went to kiss grandma on the forehead

just in case.

An American soldier fucked a Vietnamese farmgirl. Thus my mother exists.
Thus I exist. Thus no bombs = no family = no me.

Yikes.