How Do You Say I Love You in a War? by Bobbie Trotter, (1981)

I

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
All the GIs kept telling me that these people aren’t like us.
They don’t value life as we do.
How then do you explain that woman when told her son was dead,
How do you explain her beating her head
Against the pavement until her blood flowed
And mingled with his?

II

I was brought up to think of prostitutes
as something outside myself.
It never occurred to me to feel sorry for them.
Why then would Sno spend all the money
She earned last week,
To buy me a present?

III

Little war baby, so helpless, so sick, so weak.
They tell me you can’t make it
Until th nest supply shipment arrives
And I can’t come back this way.
I would give you the food from my mouth.
It is one thing to help a grown man die,
It is quite another not to be able
To help a baby live!
What can I do for you?
I hold you and that says I love,
I clean your festered skin and that says I love you
But nothing I can do is enough.
I shall remember you all my life.
I shall remember you most when I hold my own.
If I love him, in remembrance of you,
Perhaps that will be enough.

IV

Sometimes when it hurt too much
Or when the guilt piled up
Or the loneliness became overshelming
Some of the guys would play
Long, haunting melodies on the sour old guitars
Warped from the constant wetness.
Inevitably there would be a Baptist among us
Usually a black, black lad from Georgia or Alabama
Whose velvet, wordless voice would make us weep
I tried not to
For fear it would never stop.

V

It’s only a telegram,
Typed out words, common words, you use every day,
Words that usually mean nothing.
How could that young wife know how my heart broke?
How could she know how much I loved her
When I stood over her young,
Battered and broken lieutenant
And wrote those stupid, stupid words?
"Honey, I love you. Don’t worry about me."
How can she ever forgive me?

VI

I stare and wonder at you
And you at me
And we are enemies.
You killed my brother. He shot you.
You left your rice paddy for the enemy’s hospital.
I left my cornfield for my brothers
In that hospital.
I should hate you. You should hate me.
Why do we stare?
You take hold of my hand and love passes
Through our fingers.
Who is our enemy, if we love one another?