Poetics has its chaos theory:
fifty years after flitting in Saigon
she whips up a storm in his opening verse.
We fall out over what to call her –
prostitute, woman or whore –
debate if it was love-making.
“Diluting her would insult the reader,”
J, of Vietnamese heritage, is unconvinced.
Too Hemingwayesque, says S.
R, who lived with them in Antwerp,
backs the ladies of the night:
“Too euphemistic for the act.”
He keeps his “nice hands” in the second draft,
and the blood on them and the refugees.
To decide if it was “paid-for fucking”
you’ll have to read between the lines.
He never saw her again.
And her war was starting so well.
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