Grandma, there will be a day,
when the sounds I play
won’t be for your smiles.
but rather
to remember you.
Acerbic tones float from my cello
will mirror the sting of loss winding around
my grief
while sap-dusted strings wail and
burrow into my fingers.
How did you make it
in a world so far away from your own?
Away from where you once ran free
like the bow’s horsehair
that once roamed plains.
You were an outcast horse,
lost in foreign grasslands
the winds whisper
that scathing language you didn’t know.
How did you make it
leaving everything
stranded in the swollen seas,
the crescendo
of screams
bodies lost over
the sides of wooden boats
you paddled through flailing limbs,
and the cloistering smell of sardines
in refugee camps
alone, no husband, and four kids?
When your frame becomes frail,
Your love remains fierce.
How will I stay strong?
My eyes will be wells that have run dry.
I’ll miss you.
Tôi sẽ nhớ bà nội.
But today
today, I won’t think about that.
Your love rests in front of
the golden brown body
tense strings, still, the bow at rest
ready to dance.
Today I play for you.
Hôm nay tôi chơi cho bà nội.
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