March 2003

Because we are American
the friendly skies are ours
and we are free

to live on this earth
like borrowers, humbly
requesting space
to plant our crops,
to build our homes,
to plan our industries,
or not

to travel the globe
as its gracious tourists,
knowing the worth
of waiters and maids
who sense our whims,
exchanging tips for sense,
or not

to be of the world
and its causes and cares,
stopping the gunshot
that fells a Darfur man,
filling the hands of a child
spread empty across Ethiopia,
or not

to feel the heartbeat
of a Palestinian strapping
a bomb to her waist,
faced with the heavy fact
that her options shrivel
before that wall, while ours
do not

December 2004

I have already abandoned
my Advent resolution:
to pull my hands back
from the keyboard,
to slow my walking pace,
to finger low-hanging
branches, now leaf-bare.

I have forgotten Mosul,
where a nephew sleeps
through my evening hours;
at least I hope he sleeps,
after a meal that’s big
enough to fill his stomach.

Preoccupied with gift
wrapping, note writing,
kneading bread,
bleaching the Christmas
tablecloth, I’ve given in
to the season’s frenzy.

Through the hum
of my cluttered hands
I hear the simple word
“come”  from somewhere
inside, and I wish
to listen, I really do.

May 2005

Your face small as a child’s,
as if your body had regressed
day by day.

You and your men aware of the
slow starve, waiting for supplies
day by day.

The mess tent and city in ruins,
the tension of men stalking men
day by day.

Homes converted to factories,
cabinets fat with little bombs
day by day.

Children in that house, and you
entering half armed, disarmed,
your last day.

December 2005

Some doors should not be opened,
like the doors to dank basements
where we all know monsters live.
Or the door that presses you into
Toul Sleng, with its cells of red
brick and mortar, each too small
for stretching limbs, the window
slits too narrow for the creep of light.

. . . so goes the first few lines of a poem published in Pudding Magazine in 2015.

February 2014

Dear Mrs. Hin,
I am wondering how
your fence is holding up,
and the cow, will it have a calf
in early spring, like here in America,
even though your spring is
a different time of year?

I think of you often,
and your grandchildren.
Chanthy, your faithful eyes,
just maybe your blindness is good
so you don’t have to see her
sadness over not getting
to go to school.

Chathan and Channy,
proud of the bikes we brought,
which will take them far from you,
to the world of other boys, restless men,
but for now they seem satisfied,
crowing as they gain speed,
imagine freedom.

And Pov, too young,
yet already the mirror of you,
the story of his mother’s death,
your blinding infection, starvation
(until the milk cow arrived),
stories he’s sure to hold
deep in his bones.

So much about bones
there, bones of your sons,
bones of your husband, at peace
I hope, resting in the nearby killing field.
I wish this letter could bring them
back to life, back to you and
your overgrown heart.

Sincerely every day,
A friend on the other side
of a world you can no longer see,
hoping this yearly letter finds you well,
hoping the fence is in good repair
and the cow is able to calve,
hoping it is still alive.