Bone

Oh the load we carried
home from ’Nam.
The general ordered
“kill the damn enemy,
every one of them.”

But the woman,
scarf wrapped around her head,
waist deep in a swamp,
young son wearing a bamboo hat
nestled in her arms.

Now I hear the chopper,
taste sweat on my lips,
smell blood in the dirt,
see bone on the road
as I walk my children to school.