WORDCHASM

Leather strapped boots unsettle dust
that hitch on a desert breeze, splash
in children’s crying faces; I am frozen,
beat by bearing sun, a horrified statue
as if these children are weeping Medusas.
Men fall, bullets rapping against their skin;
barrels hot–mine cold–women kneel
by fallen husbands–my brothers do not cease.
Mothers, fathers, feel night’s cold;
children’s warm tears freeze on their bodies.
I hear [...]

Aiden Taylor Smith rode down the sidewalk on his shiny new tricycle. He left his cap on the front porch, so he’d know when he was back home. His house had a larger lanai in the back, counter-clockwise drainage gutters, and a few more flowers, but these differences were difficult for his seven year-old eyes [...]

“Yeah, I spent eighteen months in Nam.”
“What did you do there,” I asked.
“I killed people.”
I didn’t know what to say, I had never heard anybody admit to killing people before. But Rich was not just anybody, he was different; always quiet and reserved, he always kept to himself even when the bar was crowded [...]