I wear your memory, lipstick and eyeliner, strange topography in the mirror, this face, forested and mountainous, blood sky I am afraid to show to strangers. Today I long for your sand-white shore, the crash of tides against my skin, my body floating on your salt-crusted surface. I am living in California, but it is not the same here, this beach festooned with American faces, no family nearby, loneliness frothing against the cliffs, the clouds thin as gauze, caulking so little of the sun, which bruises my vision blue, eye-floaters gouged out of pupils, nocturnal holes into which you disappear, irretrievable. Vietnam, I have not returned to you in ten years. How I wish to hear your language instead of English, watch the vines of the morning glory straddle the riverbank and seacoast. I fear the unfamiliar, which is what you’ve become. Changeling, mythical animal, delighting in the chase. How am I, a craven mortal, supposed to capture you? My wingless body splattered against the years. The future which eats away at my carrion mind. You don’t want me back, capsizing my ship with your pet Kraken. I must find a home somewhere in my body instead, the bones and viscera, the memories rushing through my arteries, from a heart rich with language.