“dedicated to ocean vuong”
Untitled | by Maria Sokolowski | oil painting
“dedicated to ocean vuong” by Rebeca Ventura
perhaps we are briefly gorgeous,
or perhaps it is your writing
that has kept me up at night
full of exit wounds, and without direction.
but it is only a wanderer that stumbles upon
the garden of eden— the apple freshly picked off
in the distance where you first lay your head.
your scripture, full of metaphors, and pauses
words strung together like fireflies in sapphired air,
dreaming i can do the same.
clandestine beauty, what you crave at daylight
but only dare to seek in the dark
-ness slipping away as we type.
time circles around the alphabet once more,
writing letters to our mothers
hoping they can read what we didn’t write.
the simple sounds of music
where we hear a glimpse of the gunshot
piercing through the stillness.
your emotional masterpiece and artistry
i witness, i write, i hope
that one day my words hold the same effect.
and there’s a lighthouse over there,
whose candle wax hardens with the last flame
of passion and unspoken sentences.
the guiding light for the boats coming home
from the motherland, oceans away
in the preservation of our bodies.
the final wag of the dog’s tail—
little but its bark can be felt throughout earth
where we are, briefly gorgeous.
