I kept it slightly open,
the storage closet where
I hid the nightmares
in an older house
in the wooden box where I packed
the jungle boots, medals,
VC propaganda leaflets,
because like the criminal
I was and I wasn’t,
I kept going back there,
to be caught, to be set free,
for someone to peek in,
to turn away, to be aghast,
to shake me and say
“Wake up, it’s just another
one of those dreams,”
to give me absolution,
to close the door, to lock it,
ditch the key I made,
entomb the goddamned mess
I brought home
from that foreign grove
and could not throw away,
because I could not let
the trashman
see what I had done,
and I see it even now,
a box in a dumpster,
the crack of the lid,
what I hid there
