The black sergeant first class
who stalled us on the ramp
didn't kiss the ground either.
When two hearses sheened up to the plane
& government silver-gray coffins
rolled out on silent chrome coasters,
did he feel better? The empty left leg
of his trousers shivered as another hearse
with shiny hubcaps inched from behind a building ...
his three rows of ribbons rainbowed
over the forest of faces through
plate glass. Afternoon sunlight
made surgical knives out of chrome
& brass. He half smiled when
the double doors opened for him
like a wordless mouth taking back promises.
The room of blue eyes averted his.
He stood there, searching
his pockets for something:
maybe a woman's name & number
worn thin as a Chinese fortune.
I wanted him to walk ahead,
to disappear through glass,
to bc consumed by music
that might move him like Sandman Sims,
but he merely rocked on his good leg
like a bleak & soundless bell.
[YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA, Dien Cai Dau, Hanover 1988, p. 46} |