She’s here again. There
leaning against the basement
window where the sun
crouches like a tiger.
Shaking the ice in her glass
to beckon the waitress
for another Tom Collins,
she knows an old wound starts to tingle
close to the heart.

Midwestern prom queen,
Army nurse, now working
the graveyard shift at St. Luke’s
emergency ward, sweet thing
for every Vietnam vet.
How many faces are hers?
I’ve unhealed myself
for her eyes.

All the close calls
are inside my head
bright as a pinball machine,
& I’m a man fighting
with myself. Yes, no,
yes. I’m crouched there
in that same grassy gully
watching medevac choppers
glide along the edge
of the South China Sea,

down to where men run
with a line of green canvas
stretchers as twilight sinks
into the waves. I’m still
there & halfway to her
table where she sits
holding the sun
in her icy glass.