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    A Nail the Evening Hangs On
    A Nail the Evening Hangs On
    A Nail the Evening Hangs On
    Ebook73 pages29 minutes

    A Nail the Evening Hangs On

    By Monica Sok

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    About this ebook

    In her debut collection, Monica Sok uses poetry to reshape a family’s memory about the Khmer Rouge regime—memory that is both real and imagined—according to a child of refugees. Driven by myth-making and fables, the poems examine the inheritance of the genocide and the profound struggles of searing grief and PTSD. Though the landscape of Cambodia is always present, it is the liminal space, the in-betweenness of diaspora, in which younger generations must reconcile their history and create new rituals. A Nail the Evening Hangs On seeks to reclaim the Cambodian narrative with tenderness and an imagination that moves towards wholeness and possibility.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopper Canyon Press
    Release dateMar 31, 2020
    ISBN9781619322165
    A Nail the Evening Hangs On

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      Book preview

      A Nail the Evening Hangs On - Monica Sok

      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,

      knocks on my door. The exchange students order room service too,

      and the same woman walks the flights of stairs nine more times.

      Fireworks crackle and I think, I’ll be back to this same festival with my family.

      In the morning, thirty missed calls. There has been a human stampede

      on the bridge to Koh Pich—347 reported dead, 755 injured.

      Shoes litter the river. The exchange program advises us to stay away

      from Diamond Island. The prime minister’s remarks: This is the worst thing

      to happen since the Khmer Rouge. The Americans agree.

      I grow quiet in my windowless room. I step outside for air.

      The city, a crowd disappearing. The crowd, evacuated to the provinces.

      Cambodia, a perpetual stampede.

      School canceled at the university——a funerary ceremony instead.

      Do the

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