I imagined the sound of the

ambulance
when I tied a tourniquet

around my torn thighs,
when it hurt
as if you tied straws

around a wound. Bitter wound,
I thought. This
is like a golden ridge

that stained ruby,
ermine-like
on the battlefield

in Rwanda, 1994,
or New York,
2001, or Iraq

for many damn years, right?
White blood, hairs
and heirs of different colours

all lay in the
archetype of
American life—

which is one small blip
on the big
radar I call universe.

And I say “small” for a reason:
because…well,
we chose this life, didn’t we?

We picked fists
over talk,
or argument, debates, with our equally

faltering minds.
Maybe, I
say, this is the best:

this, is our
consciousness;
you know, this mind, however intractable,

ignoble, or
unreal, is
a fact we live with—just like I am with my wound.