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Minnie And Mickie
Minnie and Mickey
are what the grunts call them.
They don't have real names
and they are brother and sister.
Minnie is 13 and once had a doll.
Mickey is 9 and used to be a child.
The grunts all took Minnie into the bush
for some quick pussy
and Mickey ran errands,
cleaned weapons, shined boots
and smoked with the GI's.
One day Minnie stepped on a mine
and they put all her parts
in a small plastic bag.
No one could find her pussy
for one last punch in the bush
but a few days later
Mickey is hit by a rocket
while smoking with the guys
and both his arms are blown off.
The medic tries to treat him
but the cigarette is still burning
in the fingers of the severed arm
and when it burns down to fingers
and burns them into charcoal
Mickey screams that he can
feel the burn and the medic
shoots home the morphine
and now the grunts
have to shine their own boots
and go in the bush
with five finger Mary.
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from The Long Binh Trail
Taking their pictures is my way
of not letting them break my heart.
The tiny girl has black oceans in her eyes,
staring deep and wide at my face,
until finally she reaches up a hand
no bigger than an apricot
and runs it along my cheek.
Her mouth is cracked open with concentration
and her eyes follow every motion of my face.
I am the first American she has ever laid eyes on.
Her hair is the shape of a coconut.
Two dimples bracket her smile.
She puts her hand in mine.
And with that touch,
with the two black oceans that are her eyes —
she saves my life.
This little girl teaches me
what other guys die for and never learn.
Some guys kill to learn it.
Some guys watch best friends die to learn it.
Some guys become a lifelong bleeding
wound and never learn it.
And when the war stalks us in the night
and the dreams ambush us in our sleep
some men dream of the face they killed,
or the mutilated face of a best buddy,
or the plea for life in the eyes of a dying man.
I dream of the face of a four year old girl.
She weighs thirty pounds and she
is dressed in rags and barefoot in a jungle.
Her eyes are two black oceans.
She shows me—
the face of war.
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