Tag: BK Tuon

Two Poems by Bunkong Tuon

~ ONE ART ~ 4 Comments

Driving Home after Christmas with the In-laws

My daughter whimpered in the backseat,
“I’m not feeling well,” and vomited. Tears
and saliva spattered her My Little Pony pants.

The wailing of a world on fire woke up
her little brother, who turned to his right,
opened his mouth and wailed after big sister.

Our car, a moving metal of infant sirens
on the 87. My hands on the 10 and 2 o’clock,
I was calm like a killer before dawn.

My wife turned around in the passenger’s seat,
wiped our daughter’s vomit while singing
Greek lullabies to our son.

I took Rithy out of the car seat, pointed at
the big rigs speeding down the Northway,
made sure no stranger without a mask got close.

I put my hands on his red cheeks,
blew at his hair and face, and
watched his beautiful smile unfurl.

The world didn’t end that day.
Even if it did, I knew what must be done.
Do the work calmly and cleanly

Like those who came before me.
Without a care about anyone but my children,
this calm giving of myself.

*

Year of the Snake

Each day is a new low.
It’s like a noose. You can’t breathe.
You can’t see straight. Your heart’s giving out.
We can’t go on like this.
The darkness everywhere like a plague.
What we need is for things to slow down,
for silence to breathe,
for words to churn and do its magic,
the walls to crumble.
Everything and everywhere
is all here. It’s always been here.
When you look up, you know.
When you look around, you see.
When you turn inward, you feel.
The beginning of all things. This light.

*

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian American writer, Pushcart Prize–winning poet, and professor who teaches at Union College in Schenectady. His work has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, World Literature Today, Copper Nickel, New York Quarterly, Massachusetts Review, Salamander, diode poetry, Verse Daily, among others. He is poetry editor of Cultural Daily.

After the News of Your Passing by Bunkong Tuon

~ ONE ART ~ 6 Comments

After the News of Your Passing

1.
I went out of my way to tell people about you:
                                                Do you remember him?
He hired me straight out of graduate school.
        What did this refugee kid from Cambodia know
about teaching at a private liberal arts college?
        He must have seen in me a fawn trapped
in a well, eyes pleading, crying
        in the cold dank dark. He had my office
next to his. Every morning, we talked about classes,
        students, he reminding me of the good things
I already had: a wife and, years later, kids.
        He was my wisdom coffee, waking me up
with a clarity of mind to the magic
        and the good work before us.
He continued to teach in retirement.
        That was his calling. Kind teacher.
I told people, man,
        that man could disarm a bomb with his humor.
And he could converse on any topic
        meandering over valleys and rivers
then turning back to the original points
        with a new-found clarity.

Afterward you felt seen, lifted & loved.

2.
I was almost gleeful,
        eerily excited
to talk about you after your passing.
        Was it my way of honoring you?
My way of keeping you alive—
        Which has always been the domain of stories,
of poetry, and of songs?
        Was the mind in denial?
Whatever it was, it certainly beat
        driving alone to a grocery store at night,
pulling over on the side of the road,
        weeping in the dark

saying your name over and over.

*

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian American writer, Pushcart Prize–winning poet, and professor who teaches at Union College in Schenectady, in NY. His work has appeared in World Literature Today, Copper Nickel, New York Quarterly, Massachusetts Review, diode poetry, Verse Daily, among others. He is the author of several poetry collections. In 2024, he published What Is Left, a Greatest Hits chapbook from Jacar Press, and Koan Khmer, his debut novel from Northwestern UP/Curbstone Books. He lives with his wife and children in Upstate New York.