Dance the Charleston
He never ate the fried chicken. We had Japanese food drowned in shrimp sauce for his birthday. Between bites of broccoli, I told him he was young. Seventy is young. We were going to watch Cowboys and Aliens. Next year will be fifty years of marriage, the Rockies are waiting. Dance the Charleston, play the bass, sing those Gospel songs, come back home, watch Westerns. Make us all feel like they’re shooting up the house, but it’s only John Wayne. Massage my back with your worn hands. Forget the Agent Orange, forget the Radiation. Forget the fireworks that reminded you of Vietnam. Dance the Charleston. Let’s get out of your room, I’ll drag you out, and though I said goodbye the right way, that phone call was too short. Laugh one more time. Make your wife laugh until she cries. Never mind, don’t make her cry again. Don’t fly yet, don’t fly, fly away, oh glory. Stay here, move those pale legs that were once so tan, and dance. Dance the Charleston.
Purple Heart
if it wasn’t for the heart or
the organs that sing and churn
and are alive in and of themselves
if it wasn’t for the organs,
selfishly eroding to
lifeless pockets –
say goodnight, slivers of meat
if it wasn’t for Vietnam,
the enemy, your purple heart
and lovers rendezvous in Hawaii
if there was a void and no
promise of redemption or
afterlife permeation –
vapor-filled lumps of matter couldn’t
turn to praise and the organ
mass would draw no attention
to its low drowns and long puffs
if it wasn’t for incisions,
vessels, pressure, pints, purity
pills and vulnerability –
God’s work in the war wounds
if it wasn’t for the layers
of mushy, fleshy limbs
I wouldn’t have had your hugs
