Oh the load we carried
home from ’Nam.
The general ordered
“kill the damn enemy,
every one of them.”

But the woman,
scarf wrapped around her head,
waist deep in a swamp,
young son wearing a bamboo hat
nestled in her arms.

Now I hear the chopper,
taste sweat on my lips,
smell blood in the dirt,
see bone on the road
as I walk my children to school.