Halfway up from My Khe beach where potholes span the width of the street

concrete pavement cracks, aggregate exposed refracts

there -

golden grandmothers crouch

outside their shoulder-to-shoulder house, thinner than

boys playing on the esplanade named for armour, unbroken.

Halfway down from Son Tra where barges bob along the peninsula

oil drillers purge their loneliness overboard, plastic debris

buoys in the blue brine sea

coconut boats ruck and roll, fishermen’s arms twirl

casting nets into spume for mermaids and a free meal.

For ten dollars you can join a tour in Hoi An with a couple from L.A

among claggy mangroves and sixty tan basket boats, or

fifty gets you laid

mother knows if she opens a window for a lover

sit with her in nights neon shadow, lap on the shore.

The moon paws, an eager teen, across the vestal sea and the misted hilltops

surrounding the city, slowly son, it takes more than one night

to go from sit to stand

listen - her Bà croons a ballad to her from a crackled speaker

on her stoop: singing for long life, marriage, children,

and a foreign passport.