Our
Saigon Memento
Robert
Morris Kennedy
David’s
memories came home
without
the same military efficiency
that
delivered his corpse.
A
dead man’s memories won’t fit
inside
a body bag. A dying man’s memories
pour
away from him like amniotic fluid
spilling
onto slick clay, the least
among
insignificant things
on
a battlefield.
With
folded flag,
purple
heart, orange blossoms
and
black armbands,
we
buried David.
And
the living went on,
and
the war went on, until the last
flailing
helicopter rose from the roof
like
a flickering quail
flushed
by bird dogs.
That
night, the way bloody water
from
some distant stillbirth
is
lifted by the sun,
clarified,
and
transformed
into
dew upon our lawn,
David’s
memories came home --
invisible
scars
from
a deep, genetic wound
that
will remain with us
long
after our recollections of Saigon
are
as dry as our reflections
on
the siege of Vicksburg
as
we pass its memorial
on
our way to Mardi Gras.
***
Robert
Morris Kennedy is a Florida native, and night city editor
in Tampa for the St. Petersburg Times. His poetry and fiction
have appeared in The Berkeley Monthly, The Tampa Review,
Willow Review, Freefall, Samisdat, City
Miner, Avatar Review, Blue Collar Review, Penwood
Review, and Hidden Oak. "Our Saigon Memento"
was originally published in 1981 in Samisdat.
©
Robert M. Kennedy