Threshold Ocean Vuong

In the body, where everything has a price,
I was a beggar. On my knees,

I watched, through the keyhole, not
the man showering, but the rain

falling through him: guitar strings snapping
over his globed shoulders.

He was singing, which is why
I remember it. His voice --

it filled me to the core
like a skeleton. Even my name

knelt down inside me, asking
to be spared.

He was singing. It is all I remember.
For in the body, where everything has a price,

I was alive. I didn't know
there was a better reason.

That one morning, my father would stop
--a dark colt paused in downpour--