Camouflaging the Chimera

By Yusef Komunyakaa b. 1947 Yusef Komunyakaa

We tied branches to our helmets.

We painted our faces & rifles

with mud from a riverbank,

blades of grass hung from the pockets

of our tiger suits. We wove

ourselves into the terrain,

content to be a hummingbird’s target.

We hugged bamboo & leaned

against a breeze off the river,

slow-dragging with ghosts

from Saigon to Bangkok,

with women left in doorways

reaching in from America.

We aimed at dark-hearted songbirds.

In our way station of shadows

rock apes tried to blow our cover,

throwing stones at the sunset. Chameleons

crawled our spines, changing from day

to night: green to gold,

gold to black. But we waited

till the moon touched metal,

till something almost broke

inside us. VC struggled

with the hillside, like black silk

wrestling iron through grass.

We weren’t there. The river ran

through our bones. Small animals took refuge

against our bodies; we held our breath,

ready to spring the L-shaped

ambush, as a world revolved

under each man’s eyelid.

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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