She’s not sure what to make of herself

stranger at home 

unfamiliar face in a sea of faces that

should be everything she’s looking for

Because this is Laos

and she was supposed to remember

the story of the Mekong, Dad’s recipe

for tam mak hoong, and above all

the word for thank you

On the other side of the world

home to strangers

pale faces that jeered at

everything Other

it was too easy to forget

And this sticks to her more than the grains of rice

glued between impatient fingertips

rolling, pausing, rolling again

until a snowball of starch finds its way into this

landlocked city of familiar mystery

It’s dawn, and Luang Prabang is bustling,

a stray dog in the eye’s corner,

tourists armed with cellphone cameras,

and veteran natives

armed with the usual offering of khao niao

The first monk arrives at the top of the hill

a saffron-robed sunrise to break the idle chaos

of waiting

The rest follow one by one, seemingly infinite and

she’s reminded of ants as they

silently gather everything they need,

persistent but never imposing

“Tak bat,” the locals call it,

and she nods, having done this an ocean away

with Twinkies and Oreos

(then forgetting about it)

But she’s here now

and hopes to god it’s enough as

she tries to take in everything about

this procession of orange, yellow, silver,

a solemn line of boys and men

approaching for a daily deposit of food,

simultaneously depositing bits of themselves

into memory,

all of it sticking

        sticking

                sticking

                        Stuck

until she remembers what to make of herself.