Nguyet Mai

The moon lit up the shoreline as we walk along it.

The warm night air atones for what the darkness holds. 

The cool water encircles my feet as I walk.

I hear Uncle Thi’s voice ahead, explaining to my dad how to grab crabs out of the shallow water. 

My mom is a few steps behind. 

My sisters are a few steps ahead. 

Here we are in Florida, catching crabs along the beach after sundown with my dad’s childhood friend. 

Whom he can only call a childhood friend because they are in America, where the son of a wealthy landowner in Long Thanh could go crab catching with an illegitimate son of an American soldier. 

Tonight they are equal because of geography, but memories remember: a small tan boy with unruly curly hair carrying the school books of a pale straight-haired boy whom he called master.