Please

- Yusef Komunyakaa

Forgive me, soldier.

Forgive my right hand   

for pointing you   

to the flawless

tree line now

outlined in my brain.   

There was so much   

bloodsky at daybreak

in Pleiku, but I won’t say

those infernal guns   

blinded me on that hill.

Mistakes piled up men like clouds   

pushed to the dark side.

Sometimes I try to retrace

them, running

fingers down the map

telling less than a woman’s body—

we followed the grid coordinates

in some battalion commander’s mind.   

If I could make my mouth

unsay those orders,

I’d holler: Don’t

move a muscle. Stay put,

keep your fucking head

down, soldier.

Ambush. Gutsmoke.

Last night while making love

I cried out, Hit the dirt!

I’ve tried to swallow my tongue.

You were a greenhorn, so fearless,   

even foolish, & when I said go,

Henry, you went dancing on a red string   

of bullets from that tree line

as it moved from a low cloud.

from: Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems. Copyright 2001.