Connect: A Prose Poem
My husband’s in the basement listening to 70s records, trying to connect to another time and I’m in the living room watching British procedurals trying to connect to another place.
Five years ago today, I was in “Beer Square" in Hanoi, overwhelmed and alight with the sounds and smells, the crowds of people eating and communing on small stools on the sidewalk. I had a tiny baby in my tummy but didn’t know. I was alone but not alone. I had made a friend on a bus trip, and she had friends. I was going to Indonesia next and then the strange welcoming country of motherhood. But I didn’t know, I didn’t know. I tasted noodles with sweet chili pepper and rolls of paper thin rice, fried crunchy crickets. The freshness, the independence of the moment.
