If Only You Were
By Phan Tan Hai
This I only write, but do not say—
that if only you were a machine,
so I wouldn’t have to hear your questions
about the eternal things I never understand.
That if only you were a machine,
so you wouldn’t watch the nightly news
and wonder about distant sorrows—
about mothers fleeing with children in Ukraine,
about children crying from sniper fire in Gaza,
about the shouting from holy-war skies,
about bomb-rains collapsing buildings on all sides,
about how your hands trembled and spilled
the freshly brewed cup of coffee.
You said the bombs, the crying
shook the windows of our home,
made you curl up in fear,
tightened your heart,
shattered your dreams each night.
You asked why I seemed not to see,
even as my eyes never left the TV screen.
If only you were a machine,
so I wouldn’t have to hear your questions—
why the gardeners in our neighborhood disappeared,
why our friends split into two camps online,
why some said they were glad not to have brown skin,
why students in our area remind each other
to always carry their papers.
If only you were a machine,
so I wouldn’t hear you complain
between TV news reports that electricity, gas, groceries
have all gone up again;
so I wouldn’t have to turn off another light
though my eyes grow weaker;
so I’d shop closer to home
and buy cheaper boxes of instant noodles.
If only you were a machine,
so you wouldn’t ask so many questions about literature—
why I don’t have the tender poetry of Nguy?n Du
when he wrote his great lament for Ki?u,
why I don’t have the gentle compassion
to reveal the feminine sorrow hidden
in Melania’s film music.
If only—no,
I don’t mean robot,
I don’t mean machine.
It’s just that my words are clumsy,
my speech falters
whenever I must explain to you
that this world holds little joy;
that you must keep your heart steady like earth,
unmoved by whatever is thrown—joy, sorrow, clean, unclean;
that you must keep your heart flowing like water,
embracing and carrying away all joy, sorrow, clean, unclean;
that you must keep your heart warm like fire,
burning equally all joy, sorrow, clean, unclean;
that you must keep your heart generous like wind,
never clinging, sweeping away all joy, sorrow, clean, unclean;
that you must keep your heart wide like space,
formless, seeing nothing as joy or sorrow, clean or unclean.
So you may keep the silent virtue of mountains,
so you may smile in stillness like a flower—
even when your trembling hands
drop and shatter the cup of coffee
as the TV shows bomb-rains from a thousand miles away
shaking the windows of our home.
— January 2026
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