Summary
In "Rise and Shine," a son addresses his mother, telling her he scraped the last $8.48 from a glass jar. This was a day's worth of tips from her job at a nail salon. The speaker specifies that the money is enough to get one good hit that will last him until noon. The speaker's hands are already blurring, further clarifying that he is referring to using drugs.
The speaker refers to the money as a "weird hummingbird" in his fingers. He then takes out a carton of eggs, cracks four yolks into a white bowl, and spoons the shells. Scallions begin to hiss in oil as he cooks. He puts in a flick of fish sauce and crushed garlic the way his mother taught him to.
As the pan bubbles into a "small possible sun," the speaker refers to himself as "a decent son." More ingredients go in: salt, pepper, and a sprig of parsley. When the dish finishes cooking, the speaker says that the plate "fogs its own / ghosts." With a purple marker, he draws a smiley face on a napkin. He tries to lace his boots but can't, then leaves the house from the back door.
Outside, the birch trees sway but don't touch. The sound of crickets is described as the insects "unhinging" their jaws. This image is compared to a pipe held steady over a blue flame. Footsteps dim down a "dawn-gold road" and the speaker sees his mother's face at the window. He describes her face as a thumbprint, and asks whose god left it over.
Analysis
"Rise & Shine" describes the complex relationship between the speaker and his mother. Without using the pronoun "I," the speaker describes how he "scraped the last $8.48" from a glass jar, the entirety of a day's worth of his mother's tips (Line 1). The word "scraped" implies the family's financial struggle. The speaker determines that this amount is enough for one hit, which will last him until noon. But already, his hands are blurring, signaling that this is a speaker in the throes of drug addiction. The anaphora of "enough" and the use of enjambment in the next stanza emphasize the phrase "Enough / to be good" (Lines 5-6). The poem will return to this concept as it relates to the speaker's sense of self.
The money is described as a "weird // hummingbird" in the hands of the speaker" (Lines 9-10). This gives it the sense of something small and alive. Hummingbirds are also very territorial. This metaphor suggests that the speaker most likely feels uneasy taking the money from its rightful place. In compensation, he cooks for his mother a dish she taught him to make. The ingredients, particularly the fish sauce, suggest that this dish is (or is at least inspired by) a traditional Vietnamese recipe. The speaker seeks to connect with his mother through food.
As the dish cooks, the speaker describes it as the "pan bubbling / into a small possible / sun" (Lines 19-21). Echoing the earlier line "Enough to be good," the next line reads, "I am // a decent son" (Lines 21-22). This is the main concern of the poem: depicting a son who, even while taking his mother's money, will cook her a meal.
When the speaker leaves the house, Vuong uses descriptions of nature to create an atmosphere that reveals the characters' inner lives. Birch trees gently "sway but never // touch" (Lines 33-34). The speaker and his mother move about their lives, but do not touch in this poem. Crickets "unhinge their jaws" in a way that the poet compares to "a pipe steady / over a blue flame" (Lines 35 and 38-39). It is generally only male crickets who make sound through a process called stridulation. The word "steady" provides an interesting contrast with the usual association between drug use and being out of control. This reflects the format of the entire poem: despite focusing on a complex relationship between a drug-using son and his mother, the poem is written with the steadiness of tercets.
The final image of the poem is the face of the speaker's mother. The passage reads, "your face // at the window / a thumbprint left over / from whose god?" (Lines 42-45). The positioning of the son walking down the street with his mother watching from a window conveys her concern, though it doesn't specify whether she knows about her son's drug use. The blurriness of her face suggests the distance between them, or perhaps the effect of the son's drug withdrawal. To question whose god left the thumbprint of the mother's face conveys the situation as holy but not timeless (a thumbprint is a mark that fades). That the word "god" is lowercase also suggests polytheism, and also raises the question of what God means to a speaker dealing with addiction.
