a poem produced on the journey across the North Pacific from Beijing to San Francisco
At Vũng Tàu,
Angela and I could swim,
(at last!)
swap sweat salt for sea salt,
splash in the shallows,
where families played—
a jaunt out from
the town for the day, or
Hanoi for the week, or
Saigon for the weekend,
like us.
Angela already had her little bikini
easy under the dress
that she peeled off
and tucked between
the backpacks we’d left on the beach
at Vũng Tàu,
not minding
what might happen to them,
like the tourists we were
at Vũng Tàu—
but irresponsible ones,
carefree ones, not
the ones who clutched their wallets
downtown and switched
their drawstring bags to their
fronts to wander through
the market, through Bến Thành,
cries of “what you want?”
and “miss, miss,
you want purse?
only here,
here!”
bouncing, disregarded, off
their sunburned
noses, their dog-eared
guidebooks, their embroidered
conical nón lá—with the
plastic insides
(not like the ones the hunched women
wore to shade their faces
when they sold deep-fried sesame buns
on the street).
At Vũng Tàu,
I waded in
my crocs
and waves lapped playfully at
my ankles
and I wanted to dive
right in, beside the kids
giggling about things
we couldn’t understand.
I still needed to
change.
At Vũng Tàu,
I walked back
up the beach, back
across the hot sand, back
through the booths hawking
sugarcane juice and fizzy red Sting,
looking for a bathroom, somewhere
to slip into,
to slip out of
my t-shirt and shorts.
At Vũng Tàu,
bathrooms cost money—
there was really no need for that,
not for me—
so I stood by a tree
near the footbaths
where mothers
deftly dipped toddlers’ toes.
And I wiggled from
my clothes, my own feet sandy,
my white skin exposed in the beating sun,
for the moment before my swimsuit
(because I wanted to swim in the ocean
at Vũng Tàu)
the very swimsuit that I worked so hard
to find,
to cover as much as possible,
so I could be comfortable.
With its neckline
above my collarbones—
the dark blue shorts, even over
the bottom of the one-piece—to hide
everything—
the compressing
and the jagged patterning
to break up the contours of my chest
that I didn’t want
people to focus on.
And even so,
I was okay—
I was happy—
to stand by a tree
at Vũng Tàu
and strip down.
Naked for a second
at Vũng Tàu.
Because
that
was on my own terms,
and it wasn’t like
I was trying to show off
my body.
(For me,
it was practical.)
And even so,
later, in the setting-sun-streaked sea,
at Vũng Tàu,
when I was laughing
with the kids I’d
befriended, practicing my rudimentary
Vietnamese, men
came up to
me and tried to get
me to go back with
them, for “free beer” and
who knows what else
at Vũng Tàu.
Because I looked
American, and they know what
that means.
(For them,
it was practical.)
At Vũng Tàu,
Angela and I could swim,
(at last!)
swap sweat salt for sea salt,
splash in the shallows,
where families played—
a jaunt out from
the town for the day, or
Hanoi for the week, or
Saigon for the weekend,
like us.
Angela already had her little bikini
easy under the dress
that she peeled off
and tucked between
the backpacks we’d left on the beach
at Vũng Tàu,
not minding
what might happen to them,
like the tourists we were
at Vũng Tàu—
but irresponsible ones,
carefree ones, not
the ones who clutched their wallets
downtown and switched
their drawstring bags to their
fronts to wander through
the market, through Bến Thành,
cries of “what you want?”
and “miss, miss,
you want purse?
only here,
here!”
bouncing, disregarded, off
their sunburned
noses, their dog-eared
guidebooks, their embroidered
conical nón lá—with the
plastic insides
(not like the ones the hunched women
wore to shade their faces
when they sold deep-fried sesame buns
on the street).
At Vũng Tàu,
I waded in
my crocs
and waves lapped playfully at
my ankles
and I wanted to dive
right in, beside the kids
giggling about things
we couldn’t understand.
I still needed to
change.
At Vũng Tàu,
I walked back
up the beach, back
across the hot sand, back
through the booths hawking
sugarcane juice and fizzy red Sting,
looking for a bathroom, somewhere
to slip into,
to slip out of
my t-shirt and shorts.
At Vũng Tàu,
bathrooms cost money—
there was really no need for that,
not for me—
so I stood by a tree
near the footbaths
where mothers
deftly dipped toddlers’ toes.
And I wiggled from
my clothes, my own feet sandy,
my white skin exposed in the beating sun,
for the moment before my swimsuit
(because I wanted to swim in the ocean
at Vũng Tàu)
the very swimsuit that I worked so hard
to find,
to cover as much as possible,
so I could be comfortable.
With its neckline
above my collarbones—
the dark blue shorts, even over
the bottom of the one-piece—to hide
everything—
the compressing
and the jagged patterning
to break up the contours of my chest
that I didn’t want
people to focus on.
And even so,
I was okay—
I was happy—
to stand by a tree
at Vũng Tàu
and strip down.
Naked for a second
at Vũng Tàu.
Because
that
was on my own terms,
and it wasn’t like
I was trying to show off
my body.
(For me,
it was practical.)
And even so,
later, in the setting-sun-streaked sea,
at Vũng Tàu,
when I was laughing
with the kids I’d
befriended, practicing my rudimentary
Vietnamese, men
came up to
me and tried to get
me to go back with
them, for “free beer” and
who knows what else
at Vũng Tàu.
Because I looked
American, and they know what
that means.
(For them,
it was practical.)
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