Not Here

Hieu Nguyen

• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781566895095
• eBook ISBN: 9781566895194
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Being queer and Asian American; families we are born into and ones we chose; nostalgia, trauma and history—all dissected fearlessly.

Not Here is a flight plan for escape and a map for navigating home; a queer Vietnamese American body in confrontation with whiteness, trauma, family, and nostalgia; and a big beating heart of a book. Nguyen’s poems ache with loneliness and desire and the giddy terrors of allowing yourself to hope for love, and revel in moments of connection achieved.

Nguyễn

“It seems you’ve been looking out

one window, one moment all your life”

—Cathy Song

In the beginning: a throne, of course

set on fire.

By who?

A brother, maybe.

Blood, always.

:::

The origin, he once told me, is simple:

the name was a mask our ancestors hid behind

to escape retribution. After the dynasty crumbled

families across the empire unified under the name

under the fear of a flag

planted through a face.

:::

I sign my name & track its scent. It leads me

to the unmarked graves of our surnames

where I carve our initials into the stone.

H.M.N. + K.T.N.

:::

Asked by the parking lot boys

who chucked rocks at our heads

if we were brothers. Sort of, he’d laugh.

Our blood indistinguishable

on pavement.

:::

It was simple before: I could not love him

because he was a boy. I held his face

too close to mine. I hid

with our longing, underneath his bed.

When his father caught us, two flies drowning

in a dish of honey, he dragged us

onto the porch. Made us lie there

while he urinated on our backs.

:::

Hear a song about love found in war.

Heat of the Madame, madame—

Miss, miss. Vision in lantern light.

Hear a song about a soldier

about the men who’ve come to save her.

Hear a song about a child

with red lips. Opium poppies

pinned in her hair.

:::

I fled & did not return.

My mother crying on the telephone

Thank you for not killing my son.

Sent away to live in California

with his aunt. No good-bye, just a note

I cannot love you, if I love you, I will die.

For years I chose death.

:::

For years I refused to choose a bride.

My mother, persistent, leaving letters

& postcards on my pillow.

These women will love you.

Don’t you understand? People will kill you.

Your uncles, your father.

My defiance soiling the lace-

white landscape of her desires.

:::

What was I then if not my name?

A child of redacted blood.

& sure, I belong to history.

I belong to my mother’s fear.

:::

He got married, she reminds me.

Why can’t you?

:::

Pay attention, it’s simple: Bé Mỹ is what they named the children born in brothels to American soldiers. My aunt, Baby America, granted refuge by her name was my family’s greatest chance at a future. & isn’t that how we’re taught to survive? Hide? Or obediently follow the path paved by a white man’s desire?

:::

Made curious by loneliness, my mother asks, with...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• White Boy Time Machine: Instruction Manual
• Lesson
• Again, Let Me Tell You What I Know About Trust
• Still, Somehow
• Nguyễn
• Elegy for the First
• White Boy Time Machine: Software
• Type II
• Attending the Party
• Dear X
• The Study
• White Boy Time Machine: Joy Ride
• Again, What Do I Know About Desire?
• Cockfight
• #2
• Again, Let Me Explain Again
• White Boy Time Machine: Return Policy
• Baptism
• Apology, Sort Of
• Probe
• Punish
• Mercy
• White Boy Time Machine: Safety Tips
• B . F . F .
• Pig
• Hosting
• White Boy Time Machine: Override
• Changeling
• Commute
• Ode to the Pubic Hair Stuck in My Throat
• Note
• Politics of an Elegy
• White Boy Time Machine: Error
• The Ranger
• Afterwards
• Reunion
• Heavy
• Monica West Is Moving to Omaha, Nebraska
• Notes on Staying
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Funder Acknowledgments
• About the Author