Dien Cai Dau

Re-creating the Scene

Re-creating the Scene The metal door groans & folds shut like an ancient turtle that won't let go of a finger till it thunders. The Confederate flag flaps from a radio antenna, & the woman's clothes come apart in their hands. Their mouths find hers in the titanic darkness of the steel grotto, as she counts the names of dead ancestors, shielding a baby in her arms. The three men ride her breath, grunting over lovers back in Mississippi. She floats on their rage like a torn water flower, defining night inside a machine where men are gods. The season quietly sweats. They hold her down with their eyes, taking turns, piling stones on her father's grave. The APC rolls with curves of the land, up hills & down into gullies, crushing trees & grass, droning like a constellation of locusts eating through bamboo, creating the motion for their bodies. 19 She rises from the dust & pulls the torn garment around her, staring after the APC till it's small enough to fit like a toy tank in her hands. She turns in a circle, pounding the samarium dust with her feet where the steel tracks have plowed. The sun fizzes like a pill in a glass of water, & for a moment the world's future tense: She approaches the MPs at the gate; a captain from G-5 accosts her with candy kisses; I inform The Overseas Weekly•; flashbulbs refract her face in a room of polished brass & spit-shined boots; on the trial's second day she turns into mist— someone says money changed hands, & someone else swears she's buried at LZ Gator. But for now, the baby makes a fist & grabs at the air, searching for a breast. 20 ...