After Vietnam, he came home to fight / with the dust, went wild with the injustice, / waged war with everyone and lost.

I don’t know how to pray, / but I’ve seen them do it / on TV; kneeling by a bed / in nightgowns, hands woven / like secret friends.

my grandmother has hate tattoos / carved into her arms / goose-stepping numbers marching / wrinkled, onion-paper flesh / human ash and cattle cars

he was twenty years old with dark eyes. / I will write patient suffers from / paranoid delusion in my run report / and later just call him crazy

Like a tree your roots are gnarled and twisted / in the dampness of this earth / your yellow leaves swirling D-major triplets / dancing down to the square

On all the living walls / of this dim cave, / soot and ochre, acts of will, / come down to us to say: This is who we were.

Because you are strong. / Because your branches span out ahead of you. / And in so many years, age has allowed breadth to match height.