Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Size-Ten Boots





Marco held the boy’s hand and said, “You’re going to make it, you hear, you’re going back home.” And hearing it I thought of his scholarship and his big brown eyes. We gave him more morphine. At first Doc refused, then he gave in. Coy just lay there. If he felt pain, he didn’t show it. He was one of the boys I wanted to bring home, but now he just lay there. Just lying there, Mama. Marco held his hand. Doc walked away. When I heard the chopper, the sound of its rotor pitch thumping over the horizon, I looked back down at him and he was gone.

I never cried over here. But that time when they took him away on the litter, I cried.



Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Yin-Yang Market





"That night she woke me before midnight and told me to go with her. Said to me, I want you to see something in person that you won’t ever see again once you leave Vietnam."

Monday, June 3, 2013

The Snake Catcher's Son



"Suddenly I felt hollow. I didn’t feel relieved as the men arrived. She stood up, looked down at me, her plait falling across her chest. Her face looked shadowy in the twilight, and on the riverbank the last glimmer of sun glowed golden on the pointed tips of wild banana flowers."