A small boy talks about the Buddha. They sit on the bank and sing of shepherds and their flocks. An old man on a water buffalo watches. The red sun, like a peony, hangs in the skies of Dak To and Ban Me Thuot lighting endless bodies marching west into the plaines des jarres through fields of white ginger and jungle orchids. Pushing through elephant grass like sharks they cut through dry water.
Grassy waves carry the dead in their wake.
The moon leans down to kiss their rifles, finds nothing to reflect. Young women in ao dais, prim, proper, walk slowly down Le Loi Street, faces fixed on distant points, eyes focused straight ahead, neither left nor right. And I am Ken. I stare as they pass me by, their lips just so, frozen smiles, some fantasy of childhood dressed in silk, but hair long and black, special extra wigs keeping things cool in the hot, red streets. I saw you, dimly, when the mall closed late that night, unfold your long, dark legs from a battered, brown Corolla, look quickly in my direction, then as quickly glance away from where I walked, arms full, in the uncertain light of the almost empty lot.