Please

By Yusef Komunyakaa b. 1947 Yusef Komunyakaa

Forgive me, soldier.

Forgive my right hand

for pointing you

to the flawless

tree line now

outlined in my brain.

There was so much

bloodsky at daybreak

in Pleiku, but I won’t say

those infernal guns

blinded me on that hill.

Mistakes piled up men like clouds

pushed to the dark side.

Sometimes I try to retrace

them, running

fingers down the map

telling less than a woman’s body—

we followed the grid coordinates

in some battalion commander’s mind.

If I could make my mouth

unsay those orders,

I’d holler: Don’t

move a muscle. Stay put,

keep your fucking head

down, soldier.

Ambush. Gutsmoke.

Last night while making love

I cried out, Hit the dirt!

I’ve tried to swallow my tongue.

You were a greenhorn, so fearless,

even foolish, & when I said go,

Henry, you went dancing on a red string

of bullets from that tree line

as it moved from a low cloud.

Source: Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)

Biography

In his poetry, Yusef Komunyakaa weaves together the elements of his own life in short lines of vernacular to create complex images of life in his native Louisiana and the jungles of Vietnam. From his humble beginnings as the son of a carpenter, Komunyakaa has traveled far to become a scholar, professor, and prize-winning poet. In 1994, he claimed the Pulitzer Prize and the $50,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his Neon . . .

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