The Photo

 

After the infamous 1968 photograph of a Viet Cong officer

executed by South Vietnam’s national police chief.

 

What hurts the most

is not how death

is made permanent

by the camera’s flash

the irony of sunlight

on gunmetal

but the hand gripping the pistol

is a yellow hand,

and the face squinting

behind the barrel

a yellow face.

 

Like all photographs

this one fails

to reveal the picture.

Like where the bullet

entered his skull

the phantom of a rose

leapt into light, or how

after smoke cleared

from behind the fool

with blood on his cheek

and the dead dog by his feet

 

a white man

was lighting a cigarette.

 

 

Ars Poetica

 

When two ships emerge

from a wall of fog

their masts ablaze with flags of fire

there will be a traveller on each deck

with the same face

watching flames reflect

in the other’s eyes.       

Because neither wants to see

the other burn, they will have placed

a wooden plank across the hulls

a makeshift bridge.

Slowly, they will edge

towards the centre

their feet timid

as a child’s first steps.

The ships will moan and creek

beneath their fading weight.

Windows will burst

into breaths of ember

while two hands reach out

the horizon shortening

between their fingers.

And if they should waver

if they should fall

before they touch

may the sea receive them

as it does two pearls

of soft rain.