Dear Võ Thị Sáu,
BY RICHARD HAMILTON.
i.
Caught at the edge of the mirror pyre,
Islet of Exile’s fugitive hand,
cloth tucked in the wake of Spring.
Grenade, Eye of incense but lyrebird
Feet of rambutan, interred. My heart
Beguiled, transparent bird of passage.
Up the archipelago, mountains
Vestiges, heads appear to float near
Night’s hot display case. Firing squad,
The Moon and Civilization for
$100, please. Nacho cheese
Pump falls forward. Boat of hot wings, men
Of petite pitter patter, for which
A distended belly, venal heart
Chamber, held. In the time-quell machine,
The knife blade, immurement, benevolence
Barbs. Was it here the muzzle, long, grew?
Tentacles, a vertiginous sprout
In Ho Chi Minh City, cordoned off.
The happy disposition of roads, ports.
What will be bombed today? Tapioca
Tick in the agreeable margin. Pant
Against the gun, those military
Uniforms sea urchins mock. Birds’ flyover
An itsy booklet of colonies.
Cleaned of lychee berries, your altar
Now faces beyond calculation.
Nuclei in the bright afternoon.
Magnetism, like seven moon-caves
Between me and you, freedom, even
Hungry ghosts lure, right?
You were so young.
ii.
In miniature, plot figurines
Lined barbershop walls alongside Jet
Magazine’s Beauty of the Week. Shop
Owners like these, a Black ex-marine
Wed to an Asian American
Woman were hydras. Waiting area,
An underworld. In her, nothing meek
Routine buzz of clippers, deputy.
Yellowing guards stood in formation.
At thirteen, I leafed through dank pages
History books, at the barbershop
Mugshots of you, pubescent, before
The execution. Amid symbols
Bamboo plants, not so much carefully
Curated, would have bloomed in the heart
Of patrons, waiting to be shaped up
Over swell of noise, disagreements
About offensive fouls. I headlong howled
Live now in Barbary, in exile.
The ice blue barbicide, by rare skiff
Grounded, the image of you. Young girl
I’m loathed to cure in formaldehyde
Or ice, attendant mold, make of you
Fetish, or hold your age, ruinous
Age, against you. What may have well-bloomed
By the light of those interlocking
Islands, tiger cages, banyan trees
Of resistance in South Vietnam,
In dogeared books, was a daughter, wife
Parity, how she possessed razors,
Unbridled by tradition. Their marriage
Mandarin. Those garlanded wreaths
On the walls year-round, Malcolm X
Ho Chi Minh, and Julius Erving.
In my dreams, espy, French army men
Bananas, decorated soldiers
Outposts. Sharp and memorable parts
From the local barber, I’d imbibe
Côn Đảo.
iii.
Each a devotion, Võ Thị Sáu, skim
Of swallows, black urns, colored squadrons.
Kill orders, unforgivable lump
In her husband’s throat. The confinement
Arbitrary hierarchies’ savage
Beasts of lesser nobility might
Nightly strum, tuning the heart meter.
Reluctant monkey suit of tradition
Marines. Had they, summering tropics
Manacles, unenviable jobs
Funded holds, the commandeered? Love’s split
Allegiance—no, apologia.
And yet, dark-faced soldiers among taros
Material wedge. Love, a quagmire.
iv.
Then it used to rain a lot suddenly
Each mournful night a new story is
Born. In Lerna, if not the many
Headed wife, of you, heretics sing
Our poison, the Grecian juggernaut
Fledgling rains, build a city of scars.
Yet since red herrings earn no reward
Should not a witness be believed? Each
Skitter the hour, many headed
Labyrinths make of the night’s julienne
Genesis story. Penchants, nightshades.
Suddenly, rain stole across the face
Of the sea, of you. Cycle taxi,
In Hanoi, turned what Hercules might
Into conflict. Borne of Hydra’s lair
In poisonous lakes, the instrument
Our foreign bodies raised skin to scales.
It used to rain a lot suddenly.
Alto tenors are born in the wake
Dear Rosa Luxemburg,
BY RICHARD HAMILTON.
i.
Quiet, you say, is reminiscent of
The conditioned guard, their taut nightly tour
About the prison yard of convention.
To your question, those special afflictions
Quiet as it’s kept, sew birth to burden.
The besotted ground. Damp as gravel
Beneath the slow and grating heavy dregs
Of prison guards as to an unfreedom
A lovely little song, such quietude
Mistakes a glint of light for ascetic
Life. At intervals, these alterations
Corporeal uniforms undo the stitch.
ii.
Surplus labor
Or the Negro
Question, being
Once a brining
A boon for the
Profiteers, weds
To light-salt and
The pepper dark
Latitudes. Gigs
In service of
Social good, flout.
Figure, the boiled-
Peanut, inter-
State commerce
Those adjacent
City Planners
Splicing divides.
Disinvestment.
Home-made road signs:
OG Baba
all-white on the
Knoll. The passing
Out of plates. The
Étouffée on
Styrofoam. Win
Or comeuppance
Or what we deserved?
Flower man of
Traffic lights. Rose
Orbouquet. Win
Lose or Draw,
Water Bottles
Sweat in quick heat
Of car window
Sales when ends don’t
meet.
Notes
- Võ Thị Sáu was a freedom fighter in the Vietnamese resistance army who was captured, abducted, and killed by enemy combatants on January 23, 1952, at Hàng Dương, Côn Đảo located off the southern coast of Vietnam. She was 19 years-old at the time of her execution. Most historical accounts characterize Sáu as a grenade-wielding revolutionary whose actions resulted in the death and injury of Vietnamese traitors as well as members of the French colonial army. That would be correct. She was that and so much more.
- In part IV of Dear Võ Thị Sáu, I include lines from Laura Mullen’s poem Love which appear in The Surface (University of Illinois Press, 1991) and from Ovid: The Poems of Exile, Tristia and the Black Sea Letters (University of California Press, 2005).
Richard Hamilton was born in 1975 and grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Columbus, Georgia. Their first book, Rest of US, was published by Recenter Press in Philadelphia, PA. A Cave Canem alumnus, their poetry has appeared in Consequence Magazine, Steel Toe Review, and Rigorous Magazine, among other print publications. They hold an MFA in poetry from the University of Alabama and live in Washington, D.C. You can find him on Instagram @richardohamilton and on X (Twitter) @richham45.