Meeting Mrs Ping   Laughing, forty-two to my twenty-two, and lovely, still the belle of Phnom Penh even after college, marriage, kids — then hell: the war that throttled the city, blew in on rocket wings, the rumble and pop closer, every day closer, till the city fell quiet, faceless boys streamed in, no stopping them, black clothes, tire sandals, eyes unlit, jungle boys no bigger than their guns came from darkness to empty the city, empty everything, kill everything . . . and then five years later here you are, tart-tongued, smiling, sassy, the queen of Khao-I-Dang Camp, reaching through the wire, to me, alone.                                                     for Sunly     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont May 2009