He takes me

Abstract

He takes me Paul Tran (bio) He takes me to Colina Del Solon Orange Avenue. We play tennison courtsof azure seawater, a borderbetween us. Wind passes throughthe netlike a memory. He serves me. I pretendthe ballis a fish I catch onlyto releaseback to the world.That’s why my fathercalls me a Sissy Boy, [End Page 75] chugs a six-packof Heineken,Bud Light, and later,with his racket,smashes my fish tank:a world insidethe visible world spills onto the livingroom carpet,the kitchen tile. Using his racketas a net, I separategoldfish from glass, living from dead.I try to save them,each tiny corpse exposed to the wind,too much memoryand not enough water in their lungs:that’s how you die in the desert.There’s no escapingDeath’s cunning precision.So I surrenderhis implement. [End Page 76] I flush the fishdown the toilet. I don’t wonderwhat happens next.I accept his sickening definitionof manhood,his love. I stand on the other sideof the court, a mirrorimage—a child no longer a child. I waituntil it’s my turn. [End Page 77] Paul Tran Paul Tran is a Vietnamese American historian and poet. His work appears in CURA, Nepantla, cream city review, the Cortland Review, Split This Rock, and RHINO, which selected him for a 2015 Editor’s Prize. A recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, VONA, Poets House, Lamda Literary, and the Napa Valley Writers Conference, Paul lives in NYC, where he’s the Graduate Scholar in the Archives at the NYU Asian/Pacific/American Institue. Copyright © 2015 University of Nebraska Press