Words That Burn

War II, by Angela Johnson (1961-)

My daddy had Vietnam dreams.

Nightmares that used

to rip him out of bed screaming

and running into the living room.

Helicopters machine-gunned

down on him, and he

used to yell that he couldn’t

get the blood off.

And near the end I didn’t even

wake up anymore.

I didn’t hear Mama saying,

“Baby, baby, baby.”

And I couldn’t hear him crying.

So at the end I was almost

deaf,

and the silence wrapped

me up warm.

And I didn’t know it,

but that war in the jungle

had followed my daddy all the way

to Shorter.

 

 

NOTE:

Shorter is the small town in Alabama where the narrator of the poem lives.