two, three, many vietnams

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                    "Only a fool or a fraud talks
                     tough or romantically about war."
                                —Senator John McCain in a 2008
                                    presidential campaign ad

        the price of victory is greater
     than all blood. across the desert wastes
          no water rises to be shed.

      to pour over the land in vast
        unimaginable numbers, to leave
      every house in flames, every city
                       in ruins, to practice
           fiscal responsibility consistent
               with traditional family values!

        leaves turn to flame and gold
               in the fullness of autumn.
   in the smokestacks behind the brick walls
                                        and barbwire
      stands the essence of modern
                                           foreign policy.

     in the garden, in the backyard, in the
     marble columned sunlight, among
                the green and bending leaves,
  the distinguished colleague ambles
    in weekend trousers and smiles.

        rotor blades. trigger housing
assemblies. with lips cool and trembling
      the curled petals of rose blossoms
                   touch the air
                               in the warm morning.

   a dog barks down the block, over
  and over, the shouts
           of children, car brakes screech
    at an intersection. a bell
       sounds in a glass-roofed church,
                             bright with patriotism.

          row on row of metal boxes, row
     on row of zipped-up plastic bags.
       gunfire. pavement chunks. torn
                    bent metal car on fire.
       reporter frowning uncertain at a
           t.v. camera says sources
                close to the administration.

     basketball hoop above the garage door.
   pinwheel music of the lawn mower
                       in the green air
                   in the summer evening.
  in the town park the iron barrel
                              of a civil war cannon
    rings a sermon of grand dominion
                        under the high elms.

   can the green glad faces still be seen
in the paleness of early dawn?
        looking at the tall sails, looking
    up at a flapping cloth, emerging
  from a low tent, the air
                           clouded with gnats?

does the may wind rise, do the carnations
   of october? does the liberation front
 move through the night making
                        illegal radio broadcasts,
   gathering arms for the spring campaign?

   wind and rain, thunder over
 the mountains, fire and song, tide
                                   and floodplain!
     storm courage, earth love,
            salt dance, dawn whisper.

 a man walks to a podium, eyes
     twitching, face
                    rimmed with salt, shoulders
  bent to suggest plainness
                                and humility.
out on the floor of the vast room the crowd
     goes nuts with balloons, sends up
                     the stone mountain holler,
  jostling for position among the rattle
of folding chairs, their faces full of light
              as if lit from within, waiting
                    for him to speak, to
                                 call them friends.