"Confessional" by Hieu Minh Nguyen

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 24, 2019   Confessional   Hieu Minh Nguyen

Maybe a bit dramatic, but I light candles with my breakfast, wear a white gown around the house like a virgin. Right or wrong, forgive me? No one in this town knows forgiveness. Miles from the limits if I squint, there's Orion. If heaven exists I will be there in a minute to hop the pearly gates, a ghost felon, to find him. Of blood, of mud, of wise men. But who am I now after all these years without him: boy widow barbarian trapping hornets in my shit grin. He'll fear who I've been since. He'll see I'm a liar, a cheater, a whole garden on fire.            Copyright © 2019 Hieu Minh Nguyen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 24, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About This Poem   "One of my mentors, Connie Voisine, told me once that 'guilt is a now thing.' It happens in the present. And so this poem is about something similar. About, not the dead, but the thing still living, and how, sometimes, choosing to live feels like choosing distance. Sometimes it can feel like a betrayal, continuing to live a life without the person you once thought you'd live it for." —Hieu Minh Nguyen   Hieu Minh Nguyen is the author of two collections of poems, Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018) and This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014). A graduate from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, Hieu lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Poetry by Nguyen   Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018) "Wakeful Things" by Michael Prior "Why Seek the Dead among the Living?" by Jennifer Atkinson "Haunted Sonnet" by Hoa Nguyen May Guest Editor: Victoria Chang   Thanks to Victoria Chang, author of Barbie Chang (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Chang about her curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038