Meghan Sterling
Six Weeks in Vietnam
Deeply alone, my bones sang with it.
Alone. Alone. Alone. My absence from
the USA a relief like sudden rain.
My toes in murky puddles.
Shaky as I stepped around the grandmothers cooking
on woks in the sidewalks.
Puddles swirling with gasoline.
Hoan Kiem lake smoking with the heat.
Iron gates, bamboo, cobbled streets smelling of fish.
Anything to be away from him.
To look up like a turkey at the heavy sky
and let it rise and disappear
like the ghost of who I was when last I took stock.
Hanoi cafes began to take on more color each day
as I came awake. Each step began to lighten.
Alone. Alone. Alone.
Away from the din of the news,
my solitude rising like the hum
of the fishmongers,
the slap of sandals on stone.
Splash in the filthy puddles.
Eat the butter-drenched fish
out of a copper bowl in a wooden hut
leaning dangerously.
Wander the rice paddies,
their colored patterns
like the earth from space.
Meghan Sterling is the author of the chapbook How We Drift (Blue Lyra Press, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Glass, Driftwood Press, Lingerpost, Chronogram, Red Paint Hill, Balancing Act, Sandy River Review, Sky Island Journal, and other journals. Online at meghansterling.com
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