To Frank

These are my wartime experiences, that no one has considered 
Occurring while one reads my poetry, as I am dead. 
The pacific war pacified no one, and that's not my face, 
on the figure in mind, grimed with tropical combat. 
It's the cover of an edition of The Naked and the Dead. 

I don't want to talk. Their piquant questions are too scholarly 
for one who's chatting with her gynecologist over the stirrups. 
Nude as a nut I told her I had two new books of poetry out 
"How are they being received?"she asks and then that I grip her finger 
with my vaginal muscles, "in case of leaks."

The layers of war come to order and proclaim themselves discernible 
each decade with its enemies, mustard and wasabi, signifiers and confession 
whatever that is, a faked statement after torture. They snag us 
in their roaring gears; no one in Your generation has ever killed a person 
It breaks the body to push out babies, I got red stars all over my chest 
Some of the immigrants, machete users at age twelve, 
won't make it. The Union's too unwieldy, we can't recognize 
any more faces as our own—fact is we don't know How to be human. 

The poet watches a grenade explode; I'm communicating with the 
dead again it makes the gears go crazy I have just undergone 
a bonafide 1970s panic attack; the poet was already dead by then 
and I never met him anyway. Panic also temporarily 
discombobulates the gears. I might die but maybe 
I'll just give the perceptual frame a good whack 
The poet tells me there's a real problem with the human person 
it can't cope with its genius the poetic for an example an 
extraordinary art delineating our being as it's lived, no one listens he says not 
even my best friends, I have to fight them. The world is at war with poetry 
he says, never smiling, beneath the ludicrous green netted helmet. 

I'm adrift from my goals at last, winning the war 
They were purposefully stupid then tugged at you 
You've always been nice after all. He playacted, 
couldn't stand it; the way you write only one war novel 
Because it continues. My birthday's full of dust I'm going to throw 
on the machine. He's always been a part of me hasn't he 
In the back room we two are creating an international culture of the ancient word.