— For Doug Anderson
On the anniversary of the Buddha's
Enlightenment,
you read your poems—
how your life was beaten
into shape, how your bullets
made graves, how you filled them
with names, picked their bones—
I was seven when my father pushed
me on my knees
under the dash,
car on the tracks,
slowfall
safety glass—
"Jesus!
there's a kid in there!"
Lifeless
before death, his black,
animal eyes tracked
anyone come
into the hosptial room.
If only I could have visited more.
"I want to be this child's
child..." you remember
a young South
Vietnamese whore.
Each year, you read and
I try to get out of that car,
leg broke. Of course
we both wear signs on our backs—
Fragile. CONTENTS:
her accident, his war.
— Bronwyn Mills
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