Salyda Nguyen's Hundred Dollar Poem
She wants me to write about her obsession--
a skinny man in cowboy boots
who walks, one heel higher, at a roll.
Her finger flicks out,
manicured nail pokes my chest--
she ll pay me one hundred dollars
if I get it right.
I know that suck of air when doors open.
He walks through our office,
briefcase banging against thigh.
Salyda licks her lips,
checks her eyes in a small mirror,
plumps her breasts.
I say look, his feet are tiny
as doll's feet.
She has photographed his truck,
keeps the picture in her desk drawer
next to a picture of her mother
to whom she prays every morning.
At lunch we eat tamarind
and cucumbers soaked in vinegar.
The cowboy wobbles past.
No amount of Cambodian silk
can cocoon him.
Salyda speaks of boarding school,
remembers her mother sloped like a fish
over a basket of rice.
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