“unexplained outbreaks of encephalopathy occurred, [...] called
Ac Mon encephalitis after the Vietnamese word for nightmare, during
the lychee harvest season from May to June.”



Small hands are searching between
evergreen leaves. The promise of ripening,
the hints of cerise.

Eagerly reaching for litchis—still green.
Crack open thick skin; teeth meet white flesh.
Grimaces fill with semi-sweet juice.

*

At night arrive the shivers—the body
she already knows. Following are
the hallucinations, so easily mistaken for magic.

The wandering dreamer finds
the blackest of your eyes. Into the void she cries:
Who are you?                                                                         who are you?

*

Love, let me survive for daydreams.
Let me wait many May days; wait until the litchis
have sweetened for summer.

Then I will be earth beneath you—
a tree heavy with fruit. All of it, good and evil
I will bury inside of me.

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