As the trishaw rolls to a stop,

I spy a girl standing on the footpath

in Rue Catinat, near the Continental,

twirling a hoop around her midriff,

spinning it with enough torque to hold it up—

the supple undulations of her stomach

propelling it round and round.

A dark curtain of black hair falls

across her face as the bracelets

on her wrists catch the sun. For a moment,

I see Mai in her nightgown as she runs

into our bedroom and leaps

at the mosquito net, tumbling across the bed,

all veiled and twisting, her giggles

announcing her presence like a pealing bell.
I have a sudden urge to throw a handful

of coins at this girl to buy her hoop,

even if I have to pay more than ten times

its worth so I can send it to my daughter.

But I can’t post it to Hanoi.

And what if she doesn’t remember me?

I haven’t explained my absence, why

I left in the middle of the rainy season,

how one evening I was lifting her up

to light the sticks of sandalwood incense

before our ancestor shrine and the next

day I had fled. She laughed when we saw

the sandpipers at Haiphong, wading

on the mudflats, their long bills

darting into the water like chopsticks

immersed in a steaming soup.

The sandpipers fly south to escape

the winter, before returning.

Yet two winters have now passed

since I last held my daughter.