I am bifocal of oneness

February 18, 1999 (9:00 of several minutes past)

To Dara

 

Cambodia is one eye and the US is another

I am bifocal of oneness shaped by Diaspora

            Of ruins and war driven madness

What you're telling me of hard times, memories of which

You erase with loads of beer losing your tongue

Spit spilling words like your mother spitting blood

Unlike me your bi-cultural sea is filled with confusions

You are a multitude of bifocal shreds on death row

            For murder

The murdered you stabbed with an army knife for the love

Of gang members who would never visit

As you wait for the electric chair

To charge those tattooed arms of innocence lost to that violent

Way of life since home to your refugee's America

Unlike me you're a stray cat turned mad by things you can't explain

I have managed to go on with sorrow and sadness stacked

Like books I would read to map suffering for my journey

Since home from America back home to the Cambodia you once loved.  

 

Copyright © by Chath pierSath, 1999

---

Khmer Voice Homepage    Authors and Their Works      Table of Contents   Poetry  New Submissions