Gitmo & Saigon is a City in the Mind of my Patriot, poems by Teresa White

It’s July
and the US Court
will “maybe” make
up its mind “next” year
to think about
that is, “think” about
whether to review the question of
“whether” those men down there
ought to be able
to file
that is, “ought” to be able
to file a complaint
right here in the states
to question
that is, “question”
why they’re being held
(some over “five” years
without counsel)
in the first place.

in the Mind of my Patriot

A soliloquy under a bower of gunshot
became his:
“Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam”

If you walk far enough up Sprague
he’ll be there
where rail cars carrying ammunition
to the coast
cross the graffiti-marked bridge
he sleeps under.

He hasn’t aged in twenty years.
Must be that diet of Top Ramen
and moon pies. I always drop
a quarter in his cup.

Maybe it’s the wine, after all,
that remembers the women, girls really,
their slim bodies beneath him
before the jungle became a green body bag
blood thicker than thirst
water almost gone.