exit wounds

(written for the lunch in hell magazine)

the ship that saved you has been next to your son since 1944.

i want to tell you
i stand in one of the only places that he lived.

and we do make it to uncle sam, but you have to
tell me that it was for god
because you can’t stand
being hungrier than the cattle you cared for

i want to tell you that i share a secret with your wife,
because only she knows
the tenderness of carrying a second person’s heart

the child before me pushes me into the ocean
and squeezes the air out of my lungs to escape.

i want to tell you about the things that we will never see again
i want to tell you about things that you don’t have to.

how it felt to watch the children swim
to show us how to go into the water
without our lives on our backs.

our roots were gone, 
and you named her after the first beautiful thing you saw in kobe