Homecoming with

Homecoming with

Homecoming with

I took him with me in my first trip back to Saigon.
It could have been Casablanca had my fantasy upheld its primal murk.

They confiscated all books but let him pass
That’s his charm, an amulet worn by default.

The photo could not hold back the boyish grin, the Tassie streak.
October heat: an all-consuming hell of push/shoves and begs,
trapped in rot-salinity and rusts:
                             vortex-seas flashed flushing-downwards, asthmatic gulps
Buckets of human sweats, no dogs, no pets, sense of panic.
Ruffled, sole-trodden, loose like a page.
He held me firm, said, this is no war – look!

Really, all my Saigon sisters in their awkward positioning to pose a smile are expert-butoh dancers
Eyes glazing over, nostrils sexually arousing, the trance continued and peace.
At last.



Later on, approaching the centre (hold again) I noticed
all the post-war bargirls, pickpocket boys and hell-angels (all my far-relatives) were still with him.
A pleasant normality. Leprous flaky walls of ruined villas near the Saigon Hôtel de Ville
& the nearby resplendent awnings of many tattered afternoon clouds
yelled ‘Neo’ ‘Neo’ exactly like the day he was back from a mission shot
‘Survived hey?’ some were holding hands, shaking, gently, ‘Where have you been, love?’