Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
I wonder what lance corporal
Ricardo Sanchez thinks
about Jaime Dominguez
staring at him from across the line,
what staff sergeant
Renee Rousseau
thinks about Jean Duvalier
leaning up against that building,
what private Winston Chang,
right out of boot,
thinks about Tim Lieu
watching him intently
wondering what they’re thinking
wondering what river,
what tributary of what ancestry
they all come from,
why they are there
and what all this means,
and how do they imagine
they are some kind of enemy.
In 1967 I, a composite
of Swedes and Irish,
was with you in Vietnam,
and we were all
staring at Nguyen Quang Sang
who was looking back at us
wondering who we were
and what we thought
we were doing.
May you go home without
fixing a bayonet,
firing a tear gas canister,
dodging a molotov cocktail.
May all this bullshit cease.
May we all dine together
and the politicians
making their careers out of
all of this go fuck themselves.
