lê thi diem thúy -- "The Gangster We Are All Looking For"

A friend passed this short story on to me, and I am enamored with the writer's abilities now. There is something so stunning about these passages. I'm inspired to write and to enjoy the beauty of creating, expressing, loving....

"She is whispering his name, and in this utterance, caressing him. Over and over she calls him to her...His name becomes a tree she presses her body against. The act of calling blows around them like a warm breeze, and when she utters her own name, it is the second half of a verse that began with his. She drops her name like a pebble is dropped into a well. She wants to be engulfed by him...Shy and formal and breathless."

"I will know her by her hands and her walk which is at once slow and urgent, the walk of a woman going to the market with her goods securely bound to her side. Even walking empty-handed, my mother suggests invisible bundles whose contents no one but she can unravel."

"Not a trace of blood anywhere except her, in my throat, where I am telling you all this."