SEDUCTION
Death's perfume, he called it--
that cocktail of rotting flesh
mixed with the crisp burn of campfires
in the villages scattered throughout
the jungles brought to their knees by Napalm.
He drifted for more years than the war,
high on that forgetting weed,
his price for bartering his soul
to the demons.
My husband's youngest brother,
when stoned, tells me the stories.
She still comes at night, he whispers,
this war bitch bearing belts strung with ears
How nice this will look on you
holds out grimacing skulls
skewered on bar-b-que spits
hewn of dying Vietnamese trees,
lamp posts for your yard
Offers snapshots of lost buddies
before that march from
sniper fire to Washington Wall.
you can see them again
His sweat consorts with hers
breath stinking as she begs,
come with me
until, bedroom light still aglow,
cigarettes butts mounded,
dawn gives reprieve