I slept for seven days at a hotel with T

When I woke up I was a different person

I wanted to make money and I wanted to be a male bird

I wanted T to dive deep into my gullet

but she only swam back and forth like a fish

inside my mouth vault full of saliva

When I lay on T’s body I thought I was paddling

a boat on sand

ELA NAVEVA

the sun was burning and our feet were buried

among worn out symbols

Ah, the sun is only a red stub

dying

Next to this woman I knew about hidden destruction

Like a person drinking endless cheap liquor

or an exhausted ropewalker who cannot sit down

normally I just cut the rope

There are too many things I cannot explain

the world is too small and conflicts are too great

I live alone near Hollywood

a nameless faceless person among the faceless

I fight time and boredom with bouts of lovemaking

After seven days I walked out of the hotel with T

a bird in the sky suddenly grew tired

and dropped on my head like a rotten fruit

T said: it’s nothing, only a case of mistaken identity

we need to go eat

The End.

—Translated from the Vietnamese by Linh Dinh