i was so angry, my hair turned red, like the inside of my body.

vietnam. how men love to ruin a nation, then weep in their pension-soft beds for how the killing hurt them. meanwhile, her mountains are pregnant with bombs. unimpressed by the turning decades. meanwhile, my lips are sealed, if only to muffle the crossfire inside. 

don’t you know vietnam is too busy living on to make blockbuster films of her pain?

     you loved me

       like,

      the   boy     loves

      the lamb

            while his father slaughters it,      wringing

                                                                                   pity

                                                                                            pity

                                                                                            pity

                                                               from his heart. but never intervention.

you see. an untilled valley is fertile. an unfelled forest is virgin. nature is a mother. i mean—it is the bodies of women which nourish men.

am i fallow yet?

see here. the bridal veil ; the molting of my mother. her belly like a taut bow, and I its arrow, the sinew purring away the last of her strength. the way if you point your arms straight to the sky on the top of dong ap bia, you can almost (touch) forget they call it hamburger hill after the six hundred thirty ground up like meat (the) forget where this body has been (stars) forget.