Please

Forgive me, soldier. Forgive my right hand for pointing you to the flawless tree line now outlined in my brain. There was so much bloodsky at daybreak in Pleiku, but I won’t say those infernal guns blinded me on that hill. Mistakes piled up men like clouds pushed to the dark side. Sometimes I try to retrace them, running fingers down the map telling less than a woman’s body— we followed the grid coordinates in some battalion commander’s mind. If I could make my mouth unsay those orders, I’d holler: Don’t move a muscle. Stay put, keep your fucking head down, soldier. Ambush. Gutsmoke. Last night while making love I cried out, Hit the dirt! I’ve tried to swallow my tongue. You were a greenhorn, so fearless, even foolish, & when I said go, Henry, you went dancing on a red string of bullets from that tree line as it moved from a low cloud.