I set out in the blue American
night, this stupid sparkler
raised in my fist. Electroshocked
dandelion. Smoke columns
over the sock factory giving the moon
that Inness blur. No we’re not
falling. Things are just floating back
where they belong. The brushstroke of seafoam
in the painter’s dream
as he lays in bed dying. Where
does it go? The sparkler lends
my hospital gown a county-fair
glow. I carry it across
the parking lot. Where her Toyota
idles in the wrong
century. Slipping it in
my mother’s mouth
I tell her
she can go anywhere, be anyone
in this vast, possible land now
that she’s a ghost—the freest
thing I know.
Copyright © 2026 by Ocean Vuong. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 28, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
