On Patmos, Kneeling in the Panagea, and: What We Do with a Maul, and: “Fishing”, and: Butchering Day, and: Hoeing Beets, 1964, Skagit Valley, and: Street Vendor, Vung Tau, 1969

On Patmos, Kneeling in the Panagea

we hear the sound of a woman’s high-heeled  shoes striking the stones of the floor,confident stride, strong hips, & I am  back in a hospital bed at Clark Air

Force Base, the Philippines, September,  1969, hearing a pair of shoes tapping their waydown the corridor outside my ward. I’d been  knocked off a motorcycle by a drunk jitney

driver in Cavite City five days before,  left leg shattered, compound fractures,bone left on the street, flown to the surgeons  at Clark who cleaned, debrided, sutured

& hung me up in traction. There were three  of us in the ward. An air force guyhad blown the fingers off his left hand with a  homemade bomb. He’d been at Cam Ranh Bay

at a party on the beach. Stupid, stupid, he said.  The other guy was army, only seventeen,right leg gone below the knee, left arm  just above the elbow. Out on a routine

patrol his first week in-country, stood up to pee  & the other newbie, pulling first guard, shot him. We went through boot together. He spent  his days with a model ship, awkward

as it was to snap the pieces off & glue them into  place one-handed. If I can do this, maybeI can put myself together again, he said. Each night  after lights out, he cried for an hour, softly,

into the snot on his pillow. The staff shrink was pissed  I wouldn’t say yes to amputation, saidI was immature. By that time I was hooked  on Demerol, my butt cheeks already bared

at the stroke of each third hour, ready  for the needle. End of that week,late, they wheeled in three gurneys, jammed  them tight against the walls, woke

us up. One held an army captain, left leg just  a stump. He was hyper. Twitchy. Talkeda nurse into a telephone, called his wife. I’m fine,  sweetheart, just fine. I’m coming home, voice cracked.

He didn’t mention the leg. Second guy was nothing  but plaster & gauze, both arms in casts, slitsat eyes & mouth. He didn’t move, didn’t make  a noise. Third man didn’t have any sheets

over him, only a gown. Both legs gone, left arm missing  nearly to the shoulder, rubber tubes in bothnostrils, a pair of iv bags hung on posts  from either side of the gurney. His mouth

was open, eyes glazed. He made a sound like a pair  of house slippers shuffling across a barecarpet. His catheter bag was half full.  One of the volunteers came in the door

just as the orderlies left. They were officers’ wives  for the most part, helping out while theirhusbands flew supply runs or medevacs, stabilized  patients, wrote long, exacting reports. The war

was far away, except for the wards. They fetched us  decks of cards, looked for paperbacks,helped us fill out daily menus, poured out  cups of water, let us flirt a bit, ignored our looks

of lust. This one looked tired. She talked with  the captain, who still seemed buzzed, his handsfluttering like bats. His stump thumped up  & down as he talked. His top sheet was stained

brown. He kept repeating home, home, home. I heard her  say the plane would load & leave real early, heshould try to sleep. She put a hand on his  forehead. He settled, closed his eyes. She

moved on to the gauze man, but didn’t do much  more than stand. She reached a hand as thoughto touch, but stopped, adjusted the edge of a sheet  & turned away. She murmured something low

to the third soldier, put her ear down near  his face & nodded. She took a cup of icefrom a stand, carefully placed a chip between  his lips & let it melt. She did it twice

more. Anything I can get you, soldier? Her voice  was soft. He made a...