An open letter to anyone
on the 50th anniversary of the fall of Sài Gòn

BY ĐENISE HẠNH HUỲNH

I am the collateral
damage
you do not want
to remember

every child
every building
every mother
every soldier
sacrificed
on the line

I am the child
raped
generation
after generation
after generation

running
to the canary
field dragon river
water

pressing the rose
red blanket
she nightmares
beneath for decades

I am the mother
slowly
walking behind you
dragging my sun
tanned sandals across
the gravel towards
a better life

I am the soldier
shrapnel
in his hip
straying away
from the shack
taking a piss
before the cluster
bomb explodes

the killer
the lover
the innocent
the unhinged

the sky
blue stone
glazed years
after the fall

every tumor
every broken
liver

every stopped
heart
telling the sky
what I am not
is a victim

an invocation
a quiet death

a martyr
for anybody’s bullshit

you
whoever you are
wherever you are
from
whatever you want

you will not use me

I will not be used

I will tell everyone
what you did

what you will do

what you are capable
of doing