This Is the Dream
- This Is the Dream
In the sun, brown men glowas I hear the clop of their hammers;they nail new siding to a building, stapletar paper to a roof, whack weeds off the edge
of a yard. Always these men of soiland gasoline bring me to my father,a different brown but brown. I picturehim standing with his friend
like these men. By the railroad tracks.The construction store. A food truck.They wait to be picked up, to labor the dayforever a bit unsure if the cash will come
from the hands that work them.Years later, as a gardener, openinghis own business, Dad and I would walkrich neighborhoods with their tall bushes,
leafy maples, and so much lawn. Flyer:roll the blue sheet into handrails orslip them under welcomemats. I imagine Dad would drive
by Home Depot, point out a few menhe didn't know; then all of them with English [End Page 183] unsteady on their tongues would arrivesomewhere they didn't know equally,
and the men would bow over rakes, uncertainabout the day's earning. Here, I sweatin the summer heat. Wonder if this isthe American Dream—
for my Vietnamese father to fight alongside some,in a war they abandon, and when they decideto allow entrance, he earns the rightto cut their lawns, build their homes. [End Page 184]
Phuong T. Vuong has been awarded fellowships from Tin House, VONA/Voices, and Kearny Street Workshop's Interdisciplinary Writers Lab. She has publications in American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, Puerto Del Sol, the Margins (Asian American Writers' Workshop), and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection, The House I Inherit, was released by Finishing Line Press in 2019. She is currently pursuing her PhD in literature at the University of California, San Diego, where she unites with the Pacific.
