91W...hatever
By Patrick Majid Doherty
Holes from mortar shells on the dirt.
A girl in the distance looks at me.
This shell is one we sent.
There is an old man.
The old man lifts some dry branches.
There are weapons,
grenade launchers and such.
Later the ARMY sends Apache
helicopters to blow up these arms.
Later I look up to see
one of these Apaches flying
close enough to scalp us.
The medic in all this,
surrounded
that evening you sit
with a man, his leg
mangled by a tank
tread. Why did he
lay in its path?
I wonder if it was so he could get out of this place.
I give him sips of water between his cries.
Maybe it's not so bad here, I think.
Back stateside, you walk the beach.
To your right, a memorial to a soldier
killed in World War One, to your left
an ocean and the same water your
grandpa swam in in that picture
on your aunt’s wall. You walk
to the store where your Nana
sent you to buy smokes, where
your grandpa gave you
your first sip of whiskey.
“I wrote this poem on the beach next to my house where I go for walks sometimes. I like to be near the water… I thought about the terrain over in Iraq… It’s just nothing like I had ever seen before. These people have perfected irrigation.”
