after Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
A woman knocked at the door of my dream:
it was an open house. She took my hands, kissed them.
Her lips the scent of painted strawberry.
Face haggard as a hunger strike, bloodless
like a flag’s white stripe. Claimed she knew my kind, knew me.
I sensed a long escape from some black state
beyond recalling. Is there work to do?
Sorrows more than folk can mend, I answered truly.
At that moment, when fear turns into trust,
we shivered at tomorrow’s brink; saw how
doubt is not the privilege of one complexion.
Come in, excuse the mess, the stove blown cold.
I’ve logs to split, an axe to find their grain.
Her wordless hesitation, the length of no breath
between in and out, spoke. Said we could bridge
any abyss, but only in a single leap.
So - for coming winter months - we began to lay
the kindling of shared vocabulary.
iv. 2023
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