Dover

By NGUYEN BINH

 

Some strenuous days I
wish to be standing
by the sharp edge of
the tallest, hardest,
most harrowing of
cliffs, with myriads
of silenced conifers,
thousands of muffled
trilobites and hundreds
of stegosaur vertebrae
encaged in the purest
chalk, whereon I would
listen to the gnashing
teeth of seas of beasts
tricked offshore by our
cunning Buddha, who,
based on his rambles,
is never reaching his
hand out to save me,
not if I leap off this
balcony, fast as a love,
into the whale-dark sea,
wishing I were Sơn Tinh to raise
   the tender earth to grab me in the fall.

 

Nguyen Binh is a writer from Hanoi, Vietnam. Their poetry has appeared in Puerto del Sol, The Common, and Euphony, and their verse translation of The Tale of Kiều has been slated for publication in 2025. Currently, Binh is a PhD student in astronomy at the University of Washington.

[Purchase Issue 27 here.] 

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Dover

Related Posts

whale sculpture on white background

September 2025 Poetry Feature: Earth Water Fire Poems, a Conversation

LISA ASAGI
"We and the whales, / and everyone else, / sleep and wake in bodies / that have a bit of everything / that has ever lived. Forests, oceans, / horse shoe crabs, horses, / orange trees in countless of glasses of juice, / lichen that once grew / on the cliffsides of our ancestors, / deepseated rhizomes, and stars. // Even stars are made

Hitting a Wall and Making a Door: A Conversation between Phillis Levin and Diane Mehta

DIANE MEHTA and PHILLIS LEVIN
This conversation took place over the course of weeks—over daily phone calls and long emails, meals when they were in the same place, and a weekend in the Connecticut countryside. The poets share what they draw from each other’s work, and the work of others, exploring the pleasures of language, geometric movement, and formal constraint.

Anna Malihot and Olena Jenning's headshots

August 2025 Poetry Feature: Anna Malihon, translated by Olena Jennings

ANNA MALIHON
The girl with a bullet in her stomach / runs across the highway to the forest / runs without saying goodbye / through the news, the noble mold of lofty speeches / through history, geography, / curfew, a day, a century / She is so young that the wind carries / her over the long boulevard between bridges