A Sestina for America from France

It isn’t hard to guess who is supplying the bombs

in Yemen; nor is it difficult to think, sipping coffee

on Veterans Day, about the life of my great uncle,

who fought in Vietnam, who died highly decorated,

though he never told anyone; about the lives taken,

abused, snuffed out in pursuit of a lie called America.

In French schools, I am a representative of America.

We talk about everything American, except bombs.

In watered down English, nothing is ever taken

for granted; each word matters: kitchen, bread, coffee,

glass, milk, spoon. The classroom is decorated

with so many innocuous words, like “uncle.”

I remember going to the funeral of my great uncle.

A black veteran played Taps, the song that America

plays for its dead. They’d never seen such a decorated

veteran, they told us. He must have heard bombs

falling, exploding. He knew a life more bitter than coffee,

even after the war, all the way until it was taken.

The sestina is a French form, and as such I have taken

it, as a traitor, to honor the memory of my great uncle.

I think he would like it this way. Because coffee

is still a slave crop to this day, I know that in America,

and in French schools, one does not speak of bombs.

If you’ve heard them you must be dead, or “decorated.”

I have learned that to be considered decorated,

one must have exhibited “extraordinary heroism,” taken

nothing for granted, given everything, ignored bombs

falling and exploding, just like my great uncle.

I’ve learned this just as I’ve learned that in America,

the most consumed beverage is not soda, but coffee.

Though I wish it were, sitting here, sipping coffee,

it isn’t difficult to think about all those decorated

deaths, all the Taps played in November in America,

because it takes a while, but once the effect has taken

hold, I can only think about the death of my great uncle

like I think about a 227-kilogram, laser-guided bomb.

I cannot hear, in America or France, the sound of bombs,

decorated in U.S. flags, or tinnitus in the ears of my uncle;

only coffee brewing in the morning, and what it has taken.