Here in Phan Thiet
It's 7 o'clock.
The red sun flares.
Right now calm seas
Right now sea full of algae.
Right now not so many swimmers.
Just a few people lying about, sitting meditating.
A man, rag-tag, legless, plays the superhuman
Spinning round and round on his veined pole.
(He looks like he's survived from centuries ago
Not unlike those invalids of a million shipwrecks.)
Elsewhere the sea is salty, at times bitter, but here the sea is sublime with the scent of fermented fish.
The history of the sea is inevitable, everywhere war, but here the sea is completely different.
Elsewhere the sea dreams of uniting all at once her islands to her aging continents.
But here the sea dreams eternally of bottled fish sauce.
That's why here, all over the place, all the time, it smells funky.
Nguyễn Quốc Chánh (born 1958) Vietnam
Translated by Hai-Dang Phan
Source: Asymptote Jul 2011
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