In the case of this poem, then, it is particularly interesting that the morning scene between the two lovers is vastly overshadowed both formally and imaginatively by the imagery of Saigon's destruction. AnalysisĪn aubade is a poem that is written to accompany the break of day, most commonly in the context of two lovers parting. The poem begins with the lovers drinking champagne, and ends with the burning nun running 'silently toward her god,' both of which use the same language of opening. Their dialogue is written into the poem in italics.Įven more complex, however, is the fact that these two alternate stories of the same day are also interweaved with lyrics from Irving Berlin's song 'White Christmas'-also written in italics-which the epigraph tells us was the very song that was used as a signal for American forces to evacuate.

These embodiments of chaos and death include a dead chief of police 'facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola,' a crushed dog in the street, gunfire, an explosive shell bursting, and a 'nun on fire.'Īt the same time that this destruction takes place, however, an intimate encounter is staged between a soldier and a woman in a hotel room that is interspersed with these images of destruction. The poem follows all of the death, destruction, and chaos that evolved in Saigon on April 29, 1975, when the American military evacuated civilians and Vietnamese refugees from the city by helicopter, leaving the city to fall to North Vietnamese forces. The poem 'Aubade with Burning City' is the fourth poem in Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds, located in the first section, and it is one of the most well-known poems from the collection.

Night sky with exit wounds best poems