Issue 9 • Spring 2004 • Featured Lodestar Writer • Poetry

because

Truong Tran

a boy a six year old boy concocts a scheme he learns to lie on this day the boy discovers he discovers the truth he turns up the volume on the tv set

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the fantastic four Vs dr. doom doom is of course doomed to fail he pretends to be watching in the living room on this day his journey begins because sometimes language is not about meaning

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music for example take the word fuck float it between your lips a student in a classroom once said to him can you explain why you choose to use this word if you want my opinion it cheapens the writing its too easy a word

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the boy is standing at the crosswalk shifting his weight from one foot to the other he is waiting for the light red to green means stop to go because he to this day still relates to comic books not the hero with the super strength x-ray vision the man child who ignites by simply saying flame on no he is that nondescript man with the apparent shortcoming

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blind at birth mutated by a meteor storm just plain boring he is that man in his all too human state who chooses to live a life in secret

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in that moment it takes for the light to turn green the boy considers abandoning his journey he has a thing for horn rimmed glasses the quiet book nerd who would save the world rule the universe in that moment he thought of going home of staying home suffocating in the comforts of what is home

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the family gathers at a table among strangers the sister you grew up now speaks of revenge

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because at six he does not yet know the power of words images shape his world the prescribed kiss between a man and a woman

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a brown paper bag in the back of Alpha Beta he sees nakedness for the very first time he uses the word fuck sparingly

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it is like no other word he remembers learning it from a kid in the neighborhood not fudge or freak but fuck fuck fuck words as weapons concealed in his pockets

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because sometimes a story doesn't always have an ending the boy emerges from a dumpster with a bag magazines of naked pictures burt reynolds on the page and in the flesh he tucks it there beneath his shirt pressed up against his beating heart

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he begins to walk his journey home is only beginning

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years later in the hear and now he is a man awkward and inadequate he finds himself standing at a crosswalk still in a place still strange to the body he waits for the light

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what happens next will change his story he choose to tell history in the I

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a voice a cop he is directing traffic he holds out his hand he waves it forward gesturing as he speaks his words I swear I will never forget. Hold up hon he says with a wink and a smile I'll get you over I'll get you home

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because there is always room for such a word because he loves me because I choose to because life and death and everything in between because as a word for the reason that because I am

Truong Tran received his undergraduate education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his MFA at San Francisco State University. He is the recipient of poetry fellowships from the Arts Council of Santa Clara, the California Arts Council, the Creative Work Fund and the San Francisco Arts Commission. His poems have been published in numerous literary journals including ZYZZYVA, The American Voice, Crazyhorse, Prairie Schooner, Poetry East, Another Chicago Magazine, and The North Dakota Quarterly. He is the author of three collections of poetry including placing the accents, The Book of Perceptions, and dust and conscience, which recently received the Poetry Center Book Award. Truong is currently living in San Francisco and working as Executive Director for Kearny Street Workshop, the oldest Asian Pacific American Arts organization in United States. His poems "because" and "eight margins" are from his book within the margin, due from Apogee Press in 2004.

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