VIETNAMESE CHILD, AIR LIFTED 1972
Lyn Lifshin
I grew up in a suburb of
Chicago, braces, cheerleading.
My adoptive parents sent me
to private camps. My real parents
I remembered as lips and eyes
in a dream
After my own baby was born
I tried to imagine never
seeing her and knew I had
to find my parents.
Two years then luck.
I remembered my sister
being bigger than me.
Now she was small in my
arms and we didn't
speak the same language
but we held each other,
cried and cried
The drive to my parents
thru elephant grass and shrub
trees seemed endless.
I learned my father
searched daily in the jungle
for three years
for our bodies,
then tried to kill himself
he felt so guilty.
There were three of us
pulled from street rubble,
babies nearly. Who knows
why we were saved,
weren't working in the
fields.
All my family are skinny,
their teeth crumbling.
I had braces, a good school.
I bought an old tape of me
when I was five
singing in Vietnamese.
As I look in their eyes,
I want to re-learn it
