Fish heads
lie in a heap
besides my grandmother.
Her worn cleaver a guillotine.
Whoosh. Thump.She hums
the tune of a
song from her small village.
It is a foreign sound, but I
follow.

Cô Hai
and her oxen
stroll by on the dirt road.
We prepare to reap regrets sown
years past

in the
rice paddy where
seeds are unable to
germinate. “Something is in the
water”,

grandma
speculates. The
men have all disappeared.
I ask, “Will I disappear next?”
Maybe.

They say
Agent Orange
is coming for us all.
Grandma says nothing—one more
cleave.
Whoosh. Boom.