One With Others [I take one more drive across town thinking]

       I take one more drive across town thinking about the retired welding

teacher easing over that rise seeing the parking lot full of white men. I wonder

if he thought he would die in the jungle [where no Vietcong ever called him

[N-word] ] or he would die in front of the bowling alley [without ever having

been inside] or die in the swimming pool [without ever having been in it, except

when drained, and the police had him in their sights]. Or if, because he was a 

young man, he would never die. I attach V to my driving-around thoughts.



       An object unworthy of love she thought she was.




       It was a cri de coeur.




       Those of our get had given her a nom de guerre: V.