Language falling from my head, my name, address to my childhood home, and every synonym
for “stop” the first to leave me. Easy as fists of hair that come away in my hands. Easy as, after
three years of refusing to look my mother in the eye, I forget her face. I mean, easier than I could
have ever imagined. Adjectives to describe water on my lips pouring from my nose. Inflection an
eroding bank. When my father could still carry me, sleeping, indoors. Aquarium Tang we buried
in the primrose. Atrophied tongue waits behind my teeth like a metaphor, a man, a winter I can’t
complete. What remains, half the vowels, a kettle’s hiss and comma—just enough to amass the
makings of a sigh.
Elise Thi Tran
Elise Thi Tran is a writer, poet, and multimedia artist based in Missouri. Her work appears or is forthcoming in APARTMENT, Blackbird, Diode, Copper Nickel, The Kenyon Review, Salt Hill, and elsewhere. Find Elise on Instagram @elise.tran and selections of her work at linktr.ee/elisethi
