Sorrow
The
sick man came to Virginia Tech University campus with two guns
He
held onto his hatred like the suicide bomber in the streets of Baghdad
Thirty
two intellectual human beings were cut down
The
national treasure was abruptly blown up
Families
were shattered instantly
The
gunfire echoed a voice asking “why take others with you?”
A
mother cried out for her young pretty Virginia Tech daughter
Is
this a nightmare or a surreal tragedy?
Is
this the end of the world?
A
mirror for thirty-two families, she wanted not to be.
Her
America mourns alongside the world,
Asking
the gunman why he heartlessly destroyed the students’ journeys?
Ten
thousand miles away, in the City of Ho Chi Minh
A
rural Mother cried her heart out seeing her daughter’s picture,
It
was taken with sixty-six naked young women.
They
were stripped and examined by a groom-to-be
The
men came from South Korea searching for wives
The
voiceless Mother wept, “Oh, God, why has this happened…?”
Americans
cannot fathom what Saigon has become since her fall
How
she is transformed by the Socialist Communist regime of Hanoi
Never
mind what is seen by the eyes of the ordinary tourists
See
through the faces of the very young girls for sale
Five,
ten hundred dollars a female slave for a Taiwanese or a Korean man
Miss
Saigon seemingly is insane, “Why has my
Oh,
the phantoms of 58,000-plus American Viet vets!
Please
permeate my former land with your tears of compassion,
Squeeze
the necks of the cold-hearted merchants.
The
Mother named Việt Nam is so ashamed
Is
there anything that Hanoi takes pride in?
Mother
asks where is God the darkness of Communism?
May 2007©
© Copyright by Linh Duy Vo. All rights reserved.