The Bright White Sky
1
Behind him the sky was a vault of magnesium
lit by the explosion somersaulting him into the air
throwing him on his stomach, rattling his bones
In the bright white sky a skeleton in GI regalia grew from a black dot to a silhouette
in silver
limbs windmilling, white as bone
recalling a picture he had seen in a library book
a skeleton caught in a war dance to a tune it played with drumsticks on its ribcage
In the light of such obscene brightness, life appeared more naked than it was, bones
showed through skin
and he saw over his shoulder, as if he were only an eye (multifaceted, insect), spewing
from the distant hooch in the ville, GI skeletons converging upon him
unerringly, symmetrically, kaleidoscopically
like iron filings to a magnetic core
He clung once more to the earth, hiding his face in the ground, spreadeagled, until
something bounced off his back, something like a sack of sand
In the celestial silence following the explosion, he rolled onto his back, waggling his
hands before his face, reassuring himself they were his, not phantom hands
The smell of pork roasting focused his senses and he raised himself from his back
first on his elbows
then his hands
his left deflecting the charred torso of a baby
turning him numb where it had bounced off his back
2
He jumped to his feet, running blind, stumbling into a ditch, and would have run on
but for something clinging to the sole of his jungle boot
four barbed iron spikes, four inches long
He thought of animals who bit through their legs to escape traps
of Christ who had given his life for Mankind
and stamped his foot savagely
until the spikes pierced the protective mesh of his boot, the sole of his foot
His senses ran once more amuck
keening cries for a medic
ammoniac smell of piss
sulphurous smell of shit
chuckachuckachucka of a chopper
its downdraft enveloping him like a cavern of cool air
people hovering like Redwoods
lifting him, flying him
into blackness
and again into light
floating him on ballbearings
into a room with naked bulbs and ceiling fans
3
In his hospital bed, tiny hammers beat his white bandaged foot
A Vietnamese nurse in a white cap told him he had been fortunate
Punji sticks were treated often with toxic plants, rotting meat, shit
Even minor wounds became infected
but he had escaped with
just flesh wounds
