Gỏi Gà

I told her Vietnamese coldslaw

Lives with crushed peanuts

She tells me peanuts like peppers

Come from the America

So this dish is a young dish

A bit older than 1500s.

In the morning I boiled a pot

With a cleaver, I divided the whole

Chicken born in the woods,

The same lady who made goat milk soap

Into sectional proportions

The thighs and wings would be

Mutilated with chicken broth,

Red sauce, ginger, red onion;

The breasts white as

A geisha’s face will enter a

Pot of boiling water

I spent all afternoon crushing

The shredded floral bodies of

The cabbage, the hearts of mint leaf

The heads of cilantro and shredding

Pre–cooked chicken breasts

Until the geisha’s face

Becomes shards of crumpled light

That we all could eat

In the late evening with

Crushed fish sauce made with

Lime juice, unfiltered fish,

Serrano, garlic dipped in radiant

Light called post–dawn.