Narrative Sketches

How old were you that year, Rhosonny? Nine?
He can never remember what year he was at what age
or what grade or for certain in which state he lived.

So these were the two turbines that sprang to life within him:
He wanted to give things to people to help them
and he didn’t want to harm any of them.

Her upper east side accent, regal bearing, direct gaze,
Rich black clothes and hair, dark eyes, pale skin sophistication

“You like sake!,” in heavily Japanese-accented English.
“Yes, I like sake,” looking into her eyes, showing mirth

You believed in experience, didn’t you?
You believed that experience would refine you,
Augment you, exalt, enlighten, enrich, liberate

It was always about knowing,
wasn’t it? Those first days
with Mammy holding you the
night a man came to the house

Rivers of blood converged through millennia,
each conversion an expansion and contraction
until diverted into two fork

I’m from the
Bronx, and then they took me
and dropped me out of airplanes
into the jungles of Viet Nam.