After the song by the Baha Men
In gym we lope like dogs, sit back on our haunches
and howl, but already I do not feel animal.
I hate the infantilizing nature of our exercise
set to this song, how freely everyone moves
in their bodies. The room whines with their abandon
as I run on hands and knees, my mouth the wrong
pitch, carpet burn scraping my palms raw.
I mouth lyrics like I mouth prayers in CCD—
there a chorus of Vietnamese undulates loud
and sweet, the room filled with our rhapsody.
Everyone trades milky gel pens while I stab erasers
with lead, fake my Hail Marys and Our Fathers.
Thầy giáo singles me out with his stare,
and I confess
I only know it in English.
He makes me recite the Act of Contrition solo,
so I empty myself of God. The church bell of his hot
mouth, silenced. Me, glad. To know I can wield
language transforms me into something else:
sweaty fire hazard, windowless basement room.
I am a quickening blade. A ringing violence.
Susan Nguyen is the author of Dear Diaspora (University of Nebraska Press, 2021), which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Association of Asian American Studies, a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, and was a finalist for the Julie Suk Award. She is the editor in chief of Hayden’s Ferry Review and a member of the collective She Who Has No Master(s).
photo by Carolyn Kehler
From September 14-25, in honor of her residency at The Betsy Hotel and our 10th anniversary season, SWWIM Every Day will be featuring a selection of poems curated by Sarah Audsley.
Sarah Audsley is the author of Landlock X (Texas Review Press, 2023). A Korean American adoptee, a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, and a member of The Starlings Collective, Audsley lives and works in northern Vermont. She serves as the Writing Program Director at Vermont Studio Center.
We hope you enjoy this special collaboration!