Back to Issue Fifty-Eight

VILOMAH

by MICHELLE PHƯƠNG HỒ

 

There is no why.         When, like a vestibule
designed for carrying sheaves, you enter that day
empty-handed. And the sun leaves

no shadow. Unfathomable, they’ll say of this
tired organ. Waiting for some lasting
form to grow out of

silence. That old moniker for grief

Rippling across the fleshly plane: a glimmer
of cosmic debris—effervescent, some say, describes

that flickering
within the womb’s
dim orb

There is no outward sign for

They are trying to understand what happened

in the universe’s infancy, in its first second,
there may have been light
-like particles, but it hasn’t been proven. There may

have been tentacles, a rhinoceros, a signal that blinked
outside the uterus, silver

pulse against the grayscale then
stillness.

Why
matter like this

When, like a vestibule designed for carrying
you carry

monikers
from the shadowland
to the living, and arrive at that day

unanswered. And the sun leaves. Simply steals her
skirt off the dirt floor, taking particles
of dust, slant light-like

windows, 4,000 embryos, and the silhouette of your hands
and the handfuls of sand
inside them.

You’ll wonder, after all this

time
predicting rhythms
of life, and death, and life—again, that excruciating
phrase between starshine and

Why, there is singing.

It was a heartbeat, maybe.

Some say the universe was cut in two.

Some say we weren’t there when it happened, but I heard
our mouths open, then close.

 

Michelle Phương Hồ is the author of Bone Symphony, forthcoming from Boa Editions in October 2026 and chosen by Aracelis Girmay as a Blessing the Boats Selection. Her work appears in Nat Brut, The Offing, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. Born to Vietnamese refugees in San Jose, CA, she lives in New Haven, CT, where she teaches poetry in university classrooms, community book spaces, and living rooms.

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