Visiting 'Nam

based on The Things They Carried

I climb
out of my dad’s old pickup truck,
worn seats littered with crushed beer cans.
Feet hit pavement.
They carry me past the stands selling
tin soldiers
and baseball caps.
I follow a young girl shuffling her feet
past the mile high Lincoln
and the Gettysburg Address.
Turn right:

I hit the black going at a thousand miles per hour.
It starts at my ankles, seeps
to my knees, climbs to my stomach,
crawls over my shoulders and pours
into my mouth, filling my lungs with
a million flashlights.

Flash-bang.
He’s there.
My dancing reflection
pushes through the screaming,
scrambles through the muck, searching,
searching, for...

The boy next to me is eating,
eating an ice cream cone
dripping with hot fudge, thick as the
black that drips from my bones.
He approaches the wall, hand
outstretched, stroking the groves,
until he turns to look
straight at me.
Our eyes connect.
His chocolate-covered lips move, forming words.
No! Forming a question:

“What the hell kinda name is Kee-wa?”