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Retirement

Monica Sok

When he becomes a monk, he says I will no longer be his daughter.
To one another, we would be people. Strangers.
But what if I have children? They will not be your grandchildren?
He pauses, considering, then grips the wheel and keeps driving.
I don’t visit him enough and when I do, I never cook for him.
Imagine his monkhood. I would have to give him more respect
as a stranger. His head shaved every three weeks.
No one is allowed to touch a monk’s head. But I am the only one
who massages my father’s temples before he goes to bed.
If I am no longer his daughter, what will I offer him then?

Monica Sok is the author of the chapbook Year Zero (Poetry Society of America, 2016), selected by Marilyn Chin as the winner of he 2015 Poetry Society of American Chapbook Fellowship, and the forthcoming A Nail the Evening Hangs On (Copper Canyon Press, 2020). Sok is the recipient of a 2018 Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize, as well as fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Kundiman, Montalvo Arts Center, and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others.

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About this Poem

“We all have private languages to provoke our loved ones. Once, my father made the hollow threat of estrangement with the possibility of pursuing a monastic life during his retirement. For thirty years, he had worked as a welder making parts for agricultural machinery. While adjusting to this significant life change, he was being hard on me for not being a more traditional daughter. In the silence that followed, we both feared the loss of intimacy with one another. Years later, my father is happily retired, and I am still his daughter.”
—Monica Sok

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You and your friend stood
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takeout in hand, on the phone
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Ask the Locals

Nobody knows how those so-called revolutionaries
who wanted year zero so bad,
turned into mosquitoes. I mean, mosquitoes right?
Because not butterflies or moths rolling
in the mass graves—we all know the moths are children
who didn’t make it past five. My theory is those creeps
sucked the blood of their victims to forget
what kinds of torture they did, with their bare hands
or with other kinds of hands, the kinds with teeth.
I’m not trying to scare you now.

Monica Sok

2018

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