Anya Doan reading ‘âm thầm’

Each day I walk a tightrope
teetering between becoming, becoming
my mother, becoming my father. 

I’d dress myself in my father’s office
sternness stretched by generations
of biking in rubber sandals, cushioned by the
way his voice mellows at a cab driver from
Vũng Tàu who doesn’t know his way around
the city, “Thế, cứ đi anh chỉ cho.” 

When my father really smiles,
there I am. I am not found etched in the corner-creases
of his joy, but in the crooked bridges of our noses––
the wide, flattened nostrils that levitate
like the wings of an aeroplane.
In Vietnam, it’s said that wide nostrils are a billionaire’s exclusive.
We remind ourselves of this, laugh, and move on. 

I’d slip on the lavish hope my mother spends
when she compares the pandemic to a war:
“Cô-vi cô-vít chả là gì. Mai dậy là có vắc-xin!”
This is how she fooled herself to birthing three
and a half babies. Already, I find her arched, 
shoulders pulled back, belly  

pressed against the mirror like an inside-
out hot air balloon, pitying this hunchbacked life she's lived too well. 
In a sun-lit room––rosy from her container––
a daughter is the brash subverter of her father. 

It’s a running joke in our family now, the wide nostril thing?
Once at dinner over the topic of cosmetic surgery,
my sister said if she could fix any feature,
she would sửa cả mặt luôn chứ! I’m guessing
my father didn’t find this funny – his gaze fixed on the table mat,
the one that smells of last week’s purple soup.

Glossary

âm thầm: quietly, softly

Thế, cứ đi anh chỉ cho: I’ll show you as we go

Cô-vi cô-vít chả là gì. Mai dậy là có vắc-xin!: The virus is nothing in comparison. We’ll have a vaccine when we wake up tomorrow!

sửa cả mặt luôn chứ!: might as well fix [my] whole face!

Anya Doan is a Vietnamese, aspiring writer living on Gadigal land. She studies at the University of Sydney.