Cave Scribbles

Digging for worms by the driveway,
I uncover my old bayonet,
the one I lost near Da Nang,

pitted so deeply with blood-rust
it’ll never shine again. The cries
of punctured torsos seep from the earth,

and snake around me. I shake them off,
jam the blade in the earth and stomp
until the haft’s completely buried.

I’ll plant Solomon’s seal or maybe
lily-of-the-valley to honor
people I can’t remember or name.

The forest breathes that leather breath
that makes me ashamed of clothes
and houses, renders language

excessive and trite. Suddenly
I’ve got to dig up that bayonet
and hack my initials in a tree,

assert myself against nature
before it mothers me to death.
But I can’t find it. I dig and dig,

but it has withdrawn again
to the other side of the planet,
and will unearth itself near Da Nang

where contemporary Vietnamese
poets sit around little stick fires,
passing jugs of wine and showing

each other their bayonet scars,
war-wounds from a terrible moment
that passed before they were born.

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