Poem-a-Day

^{for Yoo (유)}

Thistleweed, lungwort, wild rye,
timothy, sweet william, do you remember?
 
Oxcart after oxcart, loaded with wounded,
driving back from the Kumgang River —
 
Maggots boiling in a boy’s leg
as he watched them crawl out of his wound, up his body —
 
I daubed them with gauze, soaked in disinfectant,
gauze — pus — bandage — blood,
 
my boy screaming when the doctor amputated his leg,
lice crackling in his scalp, his hair gone gray —
 
until he fell asleep from exhaustion,
until I fell asleep under the military blanket gripping his hand.
 
The face of my younger brother in Kaesong,
the same age as this soldier,
 
asks in my sleep, is he still alive.
Where is he now.
 
Forgive me, brother,
forgive me, puzzle-pieces of body —
 
be found,
be sutured together again,
 
but he shakes his head and looks at me
with a burst of laughter,
 
as if he could hear me, as if he still lived: to love
is not to save.