“Taking Calls From Veterans on the Brink”
by James Dao
July 31, 2010
THE POEM:
so you call
noose step chair down because
up bi down polar and up bi down step
is the absolute value of instantrelief instantgratifica-nation
at war nation at codered the color of fire the color of water
filled up over your head and you’re in over it while you’re in under it
and you’re swimming in it full on wet down there not because but because and contact at the end of life is important hand to hand combat contact isn’t quite the thing isn’t quite what she meant when she said but hand to hand fingers tracing pores tracing indentations and calluses or settle for a voice on the phone at a number you can call numbers that go up and up like the cost of a war the cost of an American flag folded into a triangle wave it like a bullfighter at the man darting into traffic into headlights bright like explosions in the field explosions in the street that make little limbs dislodge themselves from little bodies and the voices of their mothers carry the things that people carry in their heads weigh more than the things they carry in their arms sometimes like imaginary guns carried by imaginary people roaming the streets back home or the ceiling fan that whirs just the way and turns just the way so you up bi down polar up bi down step pull call think about stepping down call think about stepping off the chair so you call
