TADIOTO

Boat people leave, vowing
never to come back.  Some die,
some make it rich in the world.
They return now self-possessed on flights
that cast small shadows on the glistening ocean
they once crossed with thirst. 
On the old boulevards in the old Saigon,
they taste again a tangy custard apple, and dread
the traffic noise.  They gaze at the sun-drenched faces,
wounded to no longer recognize their own—
the old home no longer home.