You sprang from
your nap on the floor
when I kissed you, in your thin ribbed
undershirt with armholes bigger than my head.
Supper,
Mom had said.
Go wake your dad.
I didn’t know I’d
find you
on hills of high grass,
rifle slung over khaki shoulder,
swinging to the beat of dry-socked,
booted feet, following a cadence
called by countrymen
in a foreign land.
Korea was not a
place I’d met,
at seven, because I hadn’t yet seen
how it made you lunge,
alarm camouflaged in sleep
by twitching eyelids, ticking cheeks.
I got my first
taste of war in that kiss,
my baby tooth’s loose root
knocked free
by the strong
bone of your chin
that quivered at supper when I couldn’t eat
because of all our blood
on my lips.
© 2000 Angela
Masterson Jones
