My wife and I stand on Dahanyang Peak
able to spy a cove of Lake Poyang
where hundreds of citizens cast small teak
boats, each with a lighted candle, Jiujiang’s
honoring the dead...I’ve never confessed
how forty years ago, on an August
night like this, I crept—a killer, noiseless—
through a small lodge here, the general’s lust
quelled when I slit his throat, his concubine’s
windpipe crushed with one blow. The lovers shook
as though passion still danced. I slipped through pines
for hours. Rendezvoused. The Cav chopper took
me back to Khe Sanh…Candles glow like miles
of stars, she says, gazing at me. I smile.
Roger Armbrust
January 14, 2008
