Poetry by Minh Pham, Spring & Summer 2013
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Fifteen dollars and ninety-five cents plus tax,
To be exact,
Is how much I spent on the orchid
That I gave you for Father’s Day,
The orchid that took me less than ten minutes
To pick from the Home Depot shelves.
I don’t want to be angry.
But everything in
My life is measured out in numbers,
In value.
Arguments are about dollars spent today
And promises of dollars tomorrow.
At the counter, I used a twenty
From the two hundred dollars
You gave me every four months.
You took dozens of folded bills
From an empty coffee can
Saved for rent and food.
This family was not good enough for you
So you went and raised another.
Ba, how much was the
Love you held back
worth?
One orchid.
You saved: Everything you did not live up to;
Subtract a bag of rice you bought
One of those weeks.
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Minh Pham is currently working towards an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at University of California, Riverside. He was born in Saigon, Vietnam and became a Riverside, CA native at age eight. His poetry has been published in Yes, Poetry, Verdad Magazine, and Mascara Literary Review.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hojas_cayendo/5530846017/