The Sand Hill Review            http://www.sandhillreview.org        2001 November

 

Nelson Called Vietnam Beautiful

 

Nelson called Vietnam beautiful despite the war.  The child

could be anyone's.  My toes so cold this winter morning.

 

If I move what's on the piano bench, I might play.  Goals

drift in the stinky air.  Suppose, in the year of the telephone,

 

you contact your aunts.  Planet Earth provides a goodness,

even metal--like titanium.  Some words such fun to say.

 

Why not: tripe?  The gutted interior.  We're the same inside,

said someone.  Except Nelson-the-doctor mentions anomalies

 

perhaps not found till death--a major organ slightly out-of-place.

You know--not where it's pictured, in the medical text.

 

Thus reality.  As when, in the ER, the same guy's wheeled in

month after month, gun shot wound; and medics must try to save him,

 

as commanded.  One's oath, rusting in its way.  Imagine marriage!

How first came special-order flowers, and frosted cakes.

 

Muriel Karr