A Nail the Evening Hangs On. Monica Sok
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A Nail the Evening Hangs On
MONICA SOK
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for Bun Em
Contents
Americans Dancing in the Heart of Darkness
The Radio Host Goes into Hiding
Song of an Orphaned Soldier Clearing Land Mines
In a Room of One Thousand Buddhas
Self-Portrait as War Museum Captions
The Woman Who Was Small, Not Because the World Expanded
A Nail the Evening Hangs On
I
Ask the Locals
Nobody knows: How those so-called revolutionaries
who wanted so-called Year Zero so bad,
turned into mosquitoes. I mean, mosquitoes, right?
Because not butterflies or moths rolling
in the mass graves—we all know the moths are children
who didn’t make it past five. My theory is those creeps
suck the blood of their victims to forget
with their bare hands or with other kinds of hands,
the kinds with teeth. They forgot. Don’t forget: If you
scratch your arms like that, a huge welt will appear—
a rash, and those mosquitoes will keep coming.
You heard it from me. Don’t scratch their real names.
Toothpaste over that bump won’t soothe you,
not this one. I’ll tell you something personal: Every time
I hear their real names, I itch my skin. I itch my own name
too. Mosquitoes. Call them mosquitoes. This kind keeps going
like that mosquito’s straw on your calf keeps sucking.
This is when I tell you: Don’t bend.
Slap.
Americans Dancing in the Heart of Darkness
It’s the Water Festival, the city is a crowd. My skin full of sun
like so many country people who have come to Phnom Penh.
The Americans hate me and I hate them,
but they’re the only students with me and maybe I’m American too.
When I return to my windowless room at the Golden Gate Hotel,
I order fresh young coconut, a club sandwich, and French fries.
A woman with a bruised face and a silver tray walks up seven floors,