New and Selected Poems

Linthong

38 Linthong We are the foam floating on a vast ocean. We are the dust wandering in endless space. Our cries are lost in the howling wind. Unknown Vietnamese Refugee I Waiting in the jfk immigration line Linthong drinks from a metal fountain. Water circles in the back of his throat. He opens his plastic bag for inspection: one comb, a pair of Levis, and a knife. II Swimming across the Mekong River open knife clenched between his teeth rope twisted around the waist of his sister beside him 39 pulled under ducking beneath the moonlight he dragged her to a fishing boat in the South China Sea For weeks they sailed with rice sacks rigged to the mast until a typhoon whipped the cracked cotton to shreds and pulled his sister into the eager water when the winds died they burned planks torn from the deck boiled sea water to catch steam in a tube drops on the tongue III In the Filipino camp, ribs lined up on his chest like a xylophone, he learned English in the morning and sold black market cigarettes in the afternoon. Before he could sleep he said the words milk and highway, because he liked the sound. He dreamed of California, but he lives in Salem, Massachusetts, in two rooms with eleven other people. Every morning he goes to school while the Lao fishermen take buses to Gloucester to pack fish into ice at the Gorton’s Factory. And the women stay behind 40 storing light bulbs, batteries, and sneakers in the refrigerator, leaving cooked rice and milk in uncovered bowls on the cupboard. IV On Sundays Linthong chases sandpipers in and out of the tide, pulsing along the length of Singing Beach. Dozens of spinnakers dot the horizon like strange beautiful balloons. He sits on a barnacled log, tugs seaweed loose and chews. Sucking on drops of ocean, he watches fishermen cast clear lines to the sea. ...