Thursday, October 04, 2007

Replicas

[Saigon, 30/9/07]

By Adam Gibson ©

it's saigon

and you can buy
a replica of anything here;
a watch
a shirt
a watered-down bottle of beer.
fake flowers
imitation cologne
and any type of ex-US army gear.
and yet when we walked
around the tunnels of Cu Chi
we were walking
the Real Thing,
at least to a degree
because while the trees
may have regrown
after the Agent Orange
and the bodies cleared after
the B52 bombings,
it is impossible to believe
that this ragged earth
holds the history that it does,
hence we tell ourselves
it is a theme park replica,
a trumped up tourist trap,
but we know deep down
that otherwise is true.


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