In my mother tongue, to miss
sounds the same as to remember.
I dare not ask my mother,
Mẹ nhớ ngoại không? To miss
what was means to remember
what wasn’t. In my mother’s dream,
a mother remembered to kiss
her daughter good night and stayed
for a fairy tale where no father
went missing. No lonely wife. No
torn-away siblings. No mother’s
guilt for leaving. No daughter born
to the curse of memories—how
everything she loves shall be lost.
Click here to read Tran Tran on the origin of the poem.
Image by Johannes Plenio on pexels.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
Tran Tran (she/her) writes in the muddle between English and Vietnamese. Her poetry explores facets of love, loss and grief through intergenerational lenses and has been featured on Salamander Magazine, The Seventh Wave and more. She currently serves in the reading staff of Frontier Poetry, and is an upcoming editorial fellow at Shenandoah magazine. A community-driven artist, Tran enjoys running writing workshops and hosting open mic nights through her local poetry project Thơ Thở in Vietnam.
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