Poem For Monday

( Poet's Choice: Asian-American Poets )

By conservative estimates the mangroves will not return
in this century. Neither will the eyes, the limbs twisted like roots.
Today Viet lies deep in the mosquito sickness -- if he dies,
Duc dies too. There will be no time for separation, no time to airlift
the split being into surgery. Instead, the living half will wait passively
for what invariably will come rolling on, the roofs filling with people.
I didn't ask to survive.

--Quan Barry



We're at my brother-in-law's house in Sherman Oaks, back from dinner (vegetarian Mexican) and playing in a local park after an afternoon swimming in their pool; we headed briefly for the zoo, which was very hot and very crowded, and when they gave us a hard time about accepting our reciprocal membership with the National Zoo, we said the heck with it and came back to swim. The kids are getting along in stellar fashion despite the fact that they only met once before, at David and Molly's wedding sixteen months ago. But Lukas, the baby, is adorable, Adam and Maddie are having a great time torturing each other and Noelle and I have been discussing our mutual desire to see Pirates of the Caribbean.

Tomorrow I'm seeing and then my cousin and her mother, hopefully at David's restaurant!