Finding her hide we trailed
fingers down then against
grains of fur thrusting shoulders into its waxy skin.
This is how she found us
the past draped about us like a cloak
hands separating peach halves from a core.
Her form in the sound
a pandan leaf peeking through milk. The only seals in Vietnam:
American men with green faces.
Copyright © 2023 by Diana Khoi Nguyen. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 17, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.