Thanh Bùi

cross cuntry

as in the crunchy to cult course,
          good intentions littered along the way.
varied terrain, broken trust all around
          everyone bets on something. horses, ball,
a pair of fists near-missing. despite everything,
          we choose to believe. something
better is coming, from adam or memory. it is a
          study: in futurism, nostalgia. back
then we built, caught, planted. raised the
          living. now, hands idle. weapons eager.
with little else to work, we bark. beck, bite.
          colossal calls it de-extinction, resurrection;
easterly. others call it wrong locus of control.
          didn’t you read the stories? recall
the cost of reliving? i never prayed for modified
          mammoths, only for earth not
to dust. see that crash collision in the cards?
          down a distance. where we’re head
ed. locusts, lots of ‘em. edging the trees. quick,
          before kingdom comes, do me
a favor. unclench. let them live. no one is out
          to get you. nor doing it
on purpose. let go— you’re hurting us, father.

leaving

          for Diesel
you think it’s cause we’re like this?
terrestrial à la dogs versus aerial.
even our cats will move up & out
to get away. climbing, jumping,
through vertical space. can you really
leave while still on the ground?
planning, packing, driving. our
avian friends the only remaining
dinosaurs. what shocked me
this morning was the lack
of hesitation. a house finch at
the bird feeder with no wait.
maybe it felt wind change,
heard a noise. whatever the cue,
it took off flying in a split second
as me & the pup follow you around

the bluest water

                     after Toni Morrison

before we were old enough for bleach
& dyes, i tried to get k-stew’s mahogany
brown hair with sun & lemon juice. it didn’t
work, or maybe wasn’t worth the trouble getting
right, cause i only ever did it the one time & never
bothered again. at college, meeting real brunettes
dissolved all desire to be one, but it was still strange
what not even the ethnoburbs can save you from. my
father gave little but did pass on a tale: a man who
trained his pet fish to live with less & less water. after
some time, it learned to flop along with him, out of
the tank, wherever he went. no water necessary.
one day, a shower of rain had the man seeking
shelter; he assumed the fish would follow, only
to look behind & find his dear friend, little fish
drowned in a pool of water. we never wished
to be blonde, just lighter than what we were.
no desires for blue irises, but the reign of
bright still had us wanting, gasping for air.

Born in Gò Vấp and raised in Dorchester & Alief, Thanh Bùi is a writer & actor based out of Austin, Texas. Her written work has appeared in The Offing, Lammergeier, Taco Bell Quarterly, diaCRITICS, Pinhole Poetry, and other places accessible to her mom. Her film work has appeared in SXSW, CAAMFest, and elsewhere. She loves constantly.

Banner Art:
Locusts, from Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514), Woodcut illustrations done by Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, Wikimedia Commons, US-PD

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