1. Induction 

Brother, think back
if you think you’re different.

Strip down, look down,
little David. Cold feet
on the varicose marble
post office floor.

Get unslumped to Attention.
the Wanted shuffle, our
clothes stuffed in paper bags, we
hold them squeamishly like fig leaves,
some hug them to the chest like a doll.

Follow me, the Specialist yawns.
The first man coughs
and we all cough deeply,
shyly offer our testicles.

2. Pots & Pans

That windowless, greasetrap sump room,
we called it Pots & Pans. Tonight, even
at the kitchen sink, I’m there
sinking in the slop tub up to my elbows.

All that winter, bleached out,
sleepwalking, we fell in, rode numb
shoulder to shoulder with the other
black holes, back of a deuce and a half.

I hung back while my little brothers
clawed up the ice for the prize:
pouring Officer coffee. Me,
I walk right in, down to Pots & Pans.

That’s about it. Steamy glasses.
They let you smoke. I woke up
in slopping washtub Massachusetts,
dawn, Specialist Dumbfuck. Leave me alone.

I’ll never get out.

3. In the Nail Parlor

where women were
spreading their fingers
looking only at the backs
of their pale hands.
Their hands were taken
& held like a lost bird
taken down & found,
soft were their different
voices & no wrists were
bound. The Painted
Women soon found
their voices fluttering
out of their breasts about
           the Election
what else we’re so
sick of it all enough how
we can’t wait for it
to be over Obama
I’m so afraid & McCain
           for him
he’s so angry.
Then to take part,
one of the painters
added to the pot
her thought about the
           American Hero
   (she
quietly,) O, yes,
McCain, he was a
killer. The
clucking stopped
for a few awkward
moments until the
Vietnamese girls
began to click
           the tongues
again
           blowing on the 
           bloody nails.

4. Heilbronn Snow.

Snow for healing
the woods. Boughs
of clouds, heavy
as a helmet.
Quiet lamb
of a dead limb.
Trim twigs and sapling,
blighted maple and oak.
In a clearing
where oil chokes
all undergrowth,
the snow’s left
its white paw.
Animals change color
in winter, our
innocence not so
simple, no camouflage.
Hypnotically humble now,
folk trudge uphill
to the cemetery,
picking up the feet.
          
5. Song of the Unknown

Boots make faces.
Rescue the drowning,
and tie your shoelaces;
tug on your boots.

Someone is calling,
calling her lover
to save her children.
I am too weak
to listen.
My feet
are bound,
a frozen soldier’s,

no further to go.
Wind turning whichaway,
when I’ve gone
I’ll dream you a body.

Breeze will lick my fingers
and turn the pages back.

“Heilbronn Snow” - In 1960, I was stationed in Heilbronn
Germany, with the American army. On December 4, we were
confined to quarters during the annual commemoration of
the Allied fire-bombing of the town in 1944. We were told
that British bombers, finding Nuremberg covered with
clouds that night, chose to bomb Heilbronn instead, even
though it had no military targets.