Khao-I-Dang   My britches got bigger the day I met you in a bamboo room, at a bamboo table, sizing me up (I didn’t have a clue) — so damn sure of a world that never gave less than what you demanded or deserved or just made true. Couple of redheaded brats like us, in a war zone — where’d we get the nerve and what gave us the right, rat-a-tat-tat mai pen lai days, Mekong nights . . . we recognized refugees as people like us, alive, moon-eyed, bee-stung, but still there in the fight, in a world that needed us, needed our jive — Khao-I-Dang did too, back when we were brats, eating up the last of our baby fat.                                                for Miss Lola     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont December 2010