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Hai-Dang Phan

My Mother Says the Syrian Refugees Look Like Tourists

Rebecca Pyle, “Black Rock”

From NER 38.2

because she has just finished telling the story of our escape
and needs to draw a comparison, return us safely to the present,

December 2015, we’re back at my sister’s childproofed house,
keeping warm by winter sun, central heating, and our sweatpants;

because some do: “Ghaith joyfully snapped selfies, the Aegean
glimmering in the background. He looked much like a tourist,”

suggests the reporter at large in the New Yorker article I read
about one refugee’s epic escape from Syria, and think of again

when my mother can’t make room in our story for more people;
because my mother never quite has the right words in English,

though to be fair, she said “travelers,” and seemed anxious after;
because she’s not callous, you must understand, just protective . . .

[read more]

 

Hai-Dang Phan is a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow and author of a chapbook, Small Wars (Convulsive, 2016). Born in Vietnam, he grew up in Wisconsin and currently teaches at Grinnell College.

 

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Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Hai-Dang Phan, My Mother Says the Syrian Refugees Look Like Tourists, Rebecca Pyle

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Writer’s Notebook—No Ruined Stone

Answering such queries typically falls to novelists. But, being a poet, I felt compelled to ask poetry to respond.

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