By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
the first time she let down her guard
.
she was
a little embarrassed
by her thoughts
.
in your ears
she whispered:
.
“- you’ll never be able
to take away
what is mine?
.
you might
be able to turn me
inside out
once or twice, nice right…”
.
but you
never stayed
long enough for her
to open up
.
as usual
you would take away with you
the pain that isn’t yours
but the fingers of those women
the embodiment of Kiều
who on
the setting Sun
they’re gone
_____
lần đầu tiên nàng cởi
.
bỏ những suy nghĩ của mình
nàng hơi
mắc cỡ
.
sau đó
nàng thì thầm vào tai bạn:
.
“- bạn sẽ không bao giờ
làm cho tôi
mất đi những gì tôi đang có?
.
và bạn có thể thay đổi
tôi
từ phía sau ra phía trước
một hoặc hai lần thì tốt…”
.
tuy nhiên, bạn đã không
ngồi lại
khi nàng cởi
mở
.
thường thì bạn sẽ mang nỗi đau
ra đi
không phải bạn
mà những ngón tay
như những nàng Kiều
đến chiều
là
kết thúc
SONGNGUTAITRAM 
4 replies on “Lê Vĩnh Tài | no. 18:13 – the first time she let down her guard”
beautiful ❤️❤️
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Reblogged this on Commentary, Outrages, Prose and Poetry and commented:
Happy to share this. Of the many beautiful places I have seen – and equally so the beautiful people there – the western highlands of Vietnam (from Hue through DaNang and some 30 miles south breathtaking. Though not the same places and I was there when the author was four-years-old, I still hold special fond membories of those places and times despite what was going on all around me. The Que Son Mountains, climbing up from the crystal clear and bone-chilling cold streams at bottom through boulder-strewn shoulders onto rich tangles of triple-canopy trees to the mind-shattering razor ridges – then stripped bare by war but reminding me of similar razor-sharp volcanic ridges on Oahu and Hawaii, I always will love Vietnam and its geography and people.
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thank you.
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And, so, I must return “thank you” for sharing. Bathing in Song Vu Gia below the northern edge of the Que Sons and just east of further anamite (sp?) corderilla it was difficult if not impossible to place myself as a U.S. Marine at war. I was more a child at play with a bar of soap, a shallow river rock-and-pebble-filled gurgling its way to the South China Sea. High up in the mountains the crisp, cold, sweet water refreshed and renewed. And, occasionally rewarded patient hands with a small trout willing to yield its flesh to share with fellow Marines who never before “tickled” trout or tasted one raw.
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