The rocket left its tube,
smoked through daybreak
over the wire,
so close to Position 28
I could feel its whistle
shoot static through my ear,
hear the nuts and bolts inside
shake down to the road
and a hoarse scream,
“Somebody help us over here, goddammit.”
And so it arrived.
That night
it curled itself
around the wooden skid
where I slept,
dug in so deep
I closed my eyes to it.
In the village
from a distance it watched me
stiffen at the fingers of children
pulling at my pockets-
were they children or devils?
I wondered, too,
those old women carrying baskets-
which one would strap a grenade
to the belly of a boy,
send him running at me
through the crowd?
It raced along the convoy
past ARVN soldiers
napping on the hulls of tanks
as we moved through the rubber
to Dau Tieng,
holding our M-50’s two-handed,
ready for an ambush or sniper,
ready for another scream.
It breathed rhythm
of my breath
as I lay awake
under the mosquito netting,
waiting for the rocket
with my name on it
to tear open the sandbagged roof.
I could feel the B-52’s shake the ground
all the way to Cambodia .
It suckered its sour lips
against my head and whispered:
Better them than you, eh GI?
Better them than you.