My Father's Love Letters (audio only)
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From Magic City by Yusef Komunyakaa, published by Wesleyan University Press. © 1988 by Yusef Komunyakaa. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
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Facing It
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn’t,
dammit: No tears.
I’m stone. I’m flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
1988
“You and I Are Disappearing”
—Bjöm Håkansson
1988
Thanks
Thanks for the tree
between me & a sniper's bullet.
I don't know what made the grass
sway seconds before the Viet Cong
raised his soundless rifle.
Some voice always followed,
telling me which foot
to put down first.
Thanks for deflecting the ricochet
2016