A Sandal Dropped in a Swamp . It leaves a streak, a comet tensed Like a smile stopped abruptly on stunned lips It sinks, making its way Through thick darkness Through bubbles rushing up like complex plots Among the rotten leaves are green leaves And a panicked eel The sandal crawls over a soldier’s uniform Around a chair with broken legs Beside shattered cups and bowls Which of these bears the trace Of sudden joy, the trace of a quarrel? Waiting, the letters yellowed and crumbled They still wait beside a delayed-fuse bomb On the finger of a woman who died young A ring still sparkles In the depths of the black earth The first four stanzas of Ngo Tu Lap’s poem trace the…