Jet-Black Serenade
Quang Vo
For Thanh Bui
Jet-black hair tangled
on combing fingers—
your slender hand.
We ran into lilac hours as
hatched heaven rained ashes
down onto crackling paper
flower petals, peppering our
rubber soles— like strands
of rain on jagged sidewalks.
We said
A thousand times goodbye
to silk tunics and mai vàng1,
drinking chrysanthemum tea
from melamine cups
in the most Anglophonic way.
We were forgetful at times,
but how forgetful we became
of the long, obsidian roots
s pringing from our foreign minds.
Yet in the sharp mirror silence
parting your ivory mantilla,
you are the child of jet-black hair,
and I'm the native son.
1
mai vàng- small yellow flowers purchased during the Vietnamese Lunar New Year to welcome spring. The English
name "mickey-mouse plant" does not do poetic justice to its beauty.
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