"Facing It [Washington, D.C.]," Yusef Komunyakaa
Author: Yusef Komunyakaa
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone.
I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning.
I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky.
A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine.
I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone.
In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
Yusef Komunyakaa, “Facing It” from Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems. Copyright © 2001 by Yusef Komunyakaa. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press. Source: Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)
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I think the poet’s assignment was to try to imagine the sufferings of the soldiers and put himself in their shoes, but also watch everything else that was going on and realizing that this even actually took place and is real.
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