GOLDEN TORTOISE, THE

Remembering Willy

96 The Golden Tortoise Bad soup morning— medicine for my poisoned past After an hours-long sickness, Bob’s eyes shine. He laughs at the spillage he had secretly held and carried for almost four decades. We rejoice at the impossible healing that together we prove is, in fact, attainable. This mine pressure plate I planted decades ago opens my guts today R Hue struts beautifully along both banks of the Perfume River. It was an imperial capital of Viet Nam in medieval times where generations of kings built a grand, sprawling Imperial City with numerous palaces, residences, libraries. It was made famous for Americans as the site of a battle considered to be one of the war’s deadliest and recalled in the movie “Full Metal Jacket.” During two wars, first French then American forces combined to destroy 90% of the Imperial City. Soldiers and civilians on every side were slaughtered here, including old friends from home. R Remembering Willy Below the scented, twisting river scarred walls stand in boiling shadow as gravestone without inscription to his life and where it ended. At home above gray Hudson cascades my sweet wife stoops on hands and knees to kiss the pine-carpeted earth above his bones and shattered heart. ...